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Great Generals of the Ancient World
Of the thousands of commanders who served in history's armies, why is it that only a few are remembered as great leaders of men in battle? What combination of personal and circumstantial influences conspire to produce great commanders? What makes a great leader great?
Richard A Gabriel analyses the biographies of ten great generals who lived between 1481 BC and AD 632 in an attempt to identify the characteristics of intellect, psychology, personality, and experience that allowed them to tread the path to greatness.
Professor Richard Gabriel has selected the ten whom he believes to be the greatest of them all. Those included, and more so those omitted, will surprise many readers. Conspicuous by their absence, for example, are Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun.
Richard Gabriel, himself a retired soldier and professor at the Canadian Defence College, uses his selected exemplars to distill the timeless essence of military leadership.
Richard A Gabriel analyses the biographies of ten great generals who lived between 1481 BC and AD 632 in an attempt to identify the characteristics of intellect, psychology, personality, and experience that allowed them to tread the path to greatness.
Professor Richard Gabriel has selected the ten whom he believes to be the greatest of them all. Those included, and more so those omitted, will surprise many readers. Conspicuous by their absence, for example, are Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun.
Richard Gabriel, himself a retired soldier and professor at the Canadian Defence College, uses his selected exemplars to distill the timeless essence of military leadership.
- GenresHistory
320 pages, Hardcover
Published May 4, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 13, 2019
Rather preachy and not brilliantly well-written. Nice analyses of a few battles. Liked the section on Hannibal.
August 12, 2017
What exactly makes for the greatness of a great general? In answering the question Richard Gabriel isolates four qualities that the great generals possessed, at least in large part, and then spends the rest of the book showing how those qualities manifested themselves in the lives of the famous military commanders of Antiquity.
1. The great generals were intelligent and well educated .
Some of them like Sargon II the Great were extremely well educated (he understood Sumerian and Akkadian, two dead languages). The combination of intelligence and education gave them confidence in their own judgement. They were able to rise above the constraints of their societies' customs and traditions and see the bigger picture. Instead of trusting themselves to the status quo, they had the mental ability to conceive of new ways of dealing with a changing political situation.
2. They understood the political dimension of war .
To wage war effectively it is not enough just to win battles. It is necessary to conduct a war in such a way that one acquires permanent political benefits when the war is concluded. It is generally impossible to annihilate one's enemy, and even supposing one could do that, the result would only be to create more enemies out of other neighbouring states. War needs to end in an advantageous peace, and this determines its goals, its strategy and its operational and tactical objectives. The truly great generals understood this perfectly. Those like Hannibal who did not ultimately failed.
3. They were military innovators .
Successful warfare also requires an army with superior organisation and armament. Most great generals were able to create or reform armies to a level that made them capable of overcoming their enemies. Thutmose III and Philip of Macedonia stand out as reformers who changed the way armies fought for centuries afterwards.
4. The great generals possessed strength of will and purpose .
This strength of will builds on their confidence in their own judgement acquired by a good education but cannot be replaced by it. Strength of will is a character trait, reinforced by experience and practice. It is not a coincidence that all the great commanders � excepting Moses, Mohammed and Caesar - were accustomed to warfare from an early age. As an ex-major of the US army, Gabriel points out that the goal of military training is “to shape the psychology of the soldier so that he comes to trust his own abilities in an uncertain environment.� Most of the great generals were moulded this way.
With strength of will goes the willingness to take calculated risks. Warfare is an uncertain business and all successful commanders won through at some point by weighing the odds and taking gambles.
This first chapter, identifying the hallmarks of military greatness, is in my opinion the best part of the book. The rest of the book illustrates its conclusions in the lives of Gabriel's shortlist of great generals: Thutmose III of Egypt, Moses, Sargon II of Assyria, Philip II of Macedon, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal Barca, Julius Caesar, Marcus Agrippa, and Mohammed.
One thing to note about this list: all the generals with the exception of Marcus Agrippa enjoyed total or near-total political freedom. Most of them combined supreme political and military authority in one individual. Even Hannibal, heir of the powerful Barcid family who controlled extensive lands in Spain, could pretty much do what he liked. The one exception � Marcus Agrippa � does not immediately come to mind as a great general for the simple reason that he was under the authority of Augustus and hence did not shape Roman political policy.
Gabriel affirms that modern day generals lack the opportunity for greatness as real military power resides with civilian governments who determine military policy and even the composition and weaponry of the army. Generals too often become bureaucrats, cogs in a military machine that does not require great men.
The chapters on the great generals are an excellent overview of the problems those men had to deal with as generals and politicians. They also identify their limitations revealed in their response to those problems. Let me give a few examples from the book:
Thutmose III
When Thutmose III took effective control of Egypt at the age of 22, he realised that after the earlier invasion of the Hyksos Egypt could no longer rely on the desert sands of the Palestinian land bridge to keep it in isolation. He expanded the army and its powerful chariot component, making it more capable of offensive operations. He combined this with the use of ships � for the first time in history � to transport the army long distances along the coast, which increased its speed and reduced attrition.
Thutmose however did not set out to conquer the Middle East as Egypt lacked the manpower to control large swathes of territory beyond its borders (Assyria tried this policy and ultimately failed). He was content to control Palestine and Syria, ensuring a supply of resources Egypt lacked and keeping Egypt's enemies far away from the Nile. In this policy he was singularly successful and it remained successful for hundreds of years after him.
Thutmose ticked all the boxes: intelligent and highly educated, with a firm grasp of the political aspect of war, a military innovator with an iron will that at the age of 22 enabled him to overrule his older and experienced generals and take his army through a risky pass to appear behind the enemy and defeat them.
Philip II
Philip stands out as perhaps the most brilliant military innovator of Antiquity. He completely recreated the Macedonian army, inventing the lance-armed cavalry wedge, the sarissa-armed phalanx and the heavy catapult, capable of knocking down city walls and obviating the need for long sieges.
Philip understood the political situation perfectly, and successfully united Greece under his control � as much by diplomacy as by war � before preparing for his great military objective, the conquest of the Persian empire. He had a thorough grasp of the weakness of the Persian army and the centralised nature of the Persian monarchy, which meant that with the Persian king defeated, the satraps would not resist Macedonian rule. He also ticks all the boxes.
Hannibal
For Gabriel, Hannibal was a good battlefield commander with one overriding weakness � a flawed strategic vision. Carthage was a Hellenistic power, and for Hellenes warfare always ended in negotiation and a favourable peace for the victor. Hannibal did not grasp until too late that Rome was a very different proposition. Unlike Hellenes, Romans were pig-headed. They did not give up when beaten, not even after one out every five Roman males of military age was dead on the battlefield.
Of Carthaginian nobility, Hannibal had been well-educated, and could speak Punic, Latin and Greek. From childhood he had been with his father in Spain, conquering new territory for Carthage, and hence had a military upbringing. His reform of the polyglot Carthaginian army was highly effective, using cavalry as the decisive army whilst re-equipping and organising his infantry on Roman lines. But this went with mistakes. He lost a third of his army crossing the Alps � a logistical failure. His biggest mistake however was not to march on Rome after his decisive victory at Cannae. He knew how to take a city, having reduced Saguntum in Spain, but his aim was not the conquest of Rome, just a negotiated peace that went Carthage's way, and by the time he realised the Romans weren't interested in talking it was too late.
Hannibal's battlefield genius was, as Gabriel points out, perhaps a little overrated. His success depended on the ineptitude of the Roman generals he faced. Army command in mid-Republican Rome was a temporary thing: a general was appointed only for a short period and often hailed from civilian life which meant that generals lacked experience. The army compensated by following a unchanging way of deploying and fighting on the battlefield. Hannibal knew this and took advantage of it, devising and executing complex battlefield plans that depended on the co-operation of his opponent to succeed. It was when Hannibal met an experienced and innovative general in the person of Scipio that his tactical repertoire came apart. He was a good battlefield commander but not at the level of Scipio. More importantly, however, he critically lacked an understanding of the political dimension of war, which meant he could not formulate effective strategic goals that would capitalize on his victories.
Why not Alexander?
The principal fault with the book is Gabriel's exclusion of Alexander from his list. Gabriel argues that all of Alexander's achievements were merely an implementation of his father's policies and the credit for his success should go to Philip. Philip created the Macedonian army as his instrument to conquer Persia. All Alexander had to do was point it in the general direction of the Persians.
This argument does not bear close examination. Caesar - on Gabriel's list - inherited a superb Roman military machine and introduced no innovations, using it as it was to conquer Gaul. Military innovation is not a necessary hallmark of a great general, i.e. he doesn't have to fix his army if it isn't broken.
At his greatest battle at Gaugamela Alexander did show tactical innovation. Shifting his entire army obliquely to the right he obliged the Persian left wing cavalry to attempt an outflanking manoeuvre to stop this movement. Foreseeing this, Alexander committed more of his cavalry to his right, obliging the Persians to commit more of theirs, and still more, until a gap opened between the Persian centre and left wing through which Alexander was able to gallop straight towards Darius, causing the Great King to flee. This was a brilliant and entirely original plan.
Gabriel also questions Alexander's grasp of the political dimension of war, seeing his conquest of Persia and western India merely as quest for glory. The facts however prove otherwise. Macedonia subdued the Persian Empire and the Successor states held it for centuries afterwards. For Gabriel, Alexander's great mistake was not to ensure a stable succession to the throne after his death, which resulted in the breakup of the Macedonian Empire. This may be true, but it does not mean he was not a great general. Hannibal had more flawed political thinking and achieved no lasting results against Rome, but he is still on the list.
Overall Great Generals of the Ancient World is well worth the read as a fascinating introduction to the nature of warfare and the conditions in the past that determined its successful conduct, using Antiquity's great commanders as study cases. It is a useful starting point for anyone interested in military history of this period (or rather of these periods). Gabriel has written biographies of most of the commanders he describes so this book serves as a good debut to the rest of his work.
1. The great generals were intelligent and well educated .
Some of them like Sargon II the Great were extremely well educated (he understood Sumerian and Akkadian, two dead languages). The combination of intelligence and education gave them confidence in their own judgement. They were able to rise above the constraints of their societies' customs and traditions and see the bigger picture. Instead of trusting themselves to the status quo, they had the mental ability to conceive of new ways of dealing with a changing political situation.
2. They understood the political dimension of war .
To wage war effectively it is not enough just to win battles. It is necessary to conduct a war in such a way that one acquires permanent political benefits when the war is concluded. It is generally impossible to annihilate one's enemy, and even supposing one could do that, the result would only be to create more enemies out of other neighbouring states. War needs to end in an advantageous peace, and this determines its goals, its strategy and its operational and tactical objectives. The truly great generals understood this perfectly. Those like Hannibal who did not ultimately failed.
3. They were military innovators .
Successful warfare also requires an army with superior organisation and armament. Most great generals were able to create or reform armies to a level that made them capable of overcoming their enemies. Thutmose III and Philip of Macedonia stand out as reformers who changed the way armies fought for centuries afterwards.
4. The great generals possessed strength of will and purpose .
This strength of will builds on their confidence in their own judgement acquired by a good education but cannot be replaced by it. Strength of will is a character trait, reinforced by experience and practice. It is not a coincidence that all the great commanders � excepting Moses, Mohammed and Caesar - were accustomed to warfare from an early age. As an ex-major of the US army, Gabriel points out that the goal of military training is “to shape the psychology of the soldier so that he comes to trust his own abilities in an uncertain environment.� Most of the great generals were moulded this way.
With strength of will goes the willingness to take calculated risks. Warfare is an uncertain business and all successful commanders won through at some point by weighing the odds and taking gambles.
This first chapter, identifying the hallmarks of military greatness, is in my opinion the best part of the book. The rest of the book illustrates its conclusions in the lives of Gabriel's shortlist of great generals: Thutmose III of Egypt, Moses, Sargon II of Assyria, Philip II of Macedon, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal Barca, Julius Caesar, Marcus Agrippa, and Mohammed.
One thing to note about this list: all the generals with the exception of Marcus Agrippa enjoyed total or near-total political freedom. Most of them combined supreme political and military authority in one individual. Even Hannibal, heir of the powerful Barcid family who controlled extensive lands in Spain, could pretty much do what he liked. The one exception � Marcus Agrippa � does not immediately come to mind as a great general for the simple reason that he was under the authority of Augustus and hence did not shape Roman political policy.
Gabriel affirms that modern day generals lack the opportunity for greatness as real military power resides with civilian governments who determine military policy and even the composition and weaponry of the army. Generals too often become bureaucrats, cogs in a military machine that does not require great men.
The chapters on the great generals are an excellent overview of the problems those men had to deal with as generals and politicians. They also identify their limitations revealed in their response to those problems. Let me give a few examples from the book:
Thutmose III
When Thutmose III took effective control of Egypt at the age of 22, he realised that after the earlier invasion of the Hyksos Egypt could no longer rely on the desert sands of the Palestinian land bridge to keep it in isolation. He expanded the army and its powerful chariot component, making it more capable of offensive operations. He combined this with the use of ships � for the first time in history � to transport the army long distances along the coast, which increased its speed and reduced attrition.
Thutmose however did not set out to conquer the Middle East as Egypt lacked the manpower to control large swathes of territory beyond its borders (Assyria tried this policy and ultimately failed). He was content to control Palestine and Syria, ensuring a supply of resources Egypt lacked and keeping Egypt's enemies far away from the Nile. In this policy he was singularly successful and it remained successful for hundreds of years after him.
Thutmose ticked all the boxes: intelligent and highly educated, with a firm grasp of the political aspect of war, a military innovator with an iron will that at the age of 22 enabled him to overrule his older and experienced generals and take his army through a risky pass to appear behind the enemy and defeat them.
Philip II
Philip stands out as perhaps the most brilliant military innovator of Antiquity. He completely recreated the Macedonian army, inventing the lance-armed cavalry wedge, the sarissa-armed phalanx and the heavy catapult, capable of knocking down city walls and obviating the need for long sieges.
Philip understood the political situation perfectly, and successfully united Greece under his control � as much by diplomacy as by war � before preparing for his great military objective, the conquest of the Persian empire. He had a thorough grasp of the weakness of the Persian army and the centralised nature of the Persian monarchy, which meant that with the Persian king defeated, the satraps would not resist Macedonian rule. He also ticks all the boxes.
Hannibal
For Gabriel, Hannibal was a good battlefield commander with one overriding weakness � a flawed strategic vision. Carthage was a Hellenistic power, and for Hellenes warfare always ended in negotiation and a favourable peace for the victor. Hannibal did not grasp until too late that Rome was a very different proposition. Unlike Hellenes, Romans were pig-headed. They did not give up when beaten, not even after one out every five Roman males of military age was dead on the battlefield.
Of Carthaginian nobility, Hannibal had been well-educated, and could speak Punic, Latin and Greek. From childhood he had been with his father in Spain, conquering new territory for Carthage, and hence had a military upbringing. His reform of the polyglot Carthaginian army was highly effective, using cavalry as the decisive army whilst re-equipping and organising his infantry on Roman lines. But this went with mistakes. He lost a third of his army crossing the Alps � a logistical failure. His biggest mistake however was not to march on Rome after his decisive victory at Cannae. He knew how to take a city, having reduced Saguntum in Spain, but his aim was not the conquest of Rome, just a negotiated peace that went Carthage's way, and by the time he realised the Romans weren't interested in talking it was too late.
Hannibal's battlefield genius was, as Gabriel points out, perhaps a little overrated. His success depended on the ineptitude of the Roman generals he faced. Army command in mid-Republican Rome was a temporary thing: a general was appointed only for a short period and often hailed from civilian life which meant that generals lacked experience. The army compensated by following a unchanging way of deploying and fighting on the battlefield. Hannibal knew this and took advantage of it, devising and executing complex battlefield plans that depended on the co-operation of his opponent to succeed. It was when Hannibal met an experienced and innovative general in the person of Scipio that his tactical repertoire came apart. He was a good battlefield commander but not at the level of Scipio. More importantly, however, he critically lacked an understanding of the political dimension of war, which meant he could not formulate effective strategic goals that would capitalize on his victories.
Why not Alexander?
The principal fault with the book is Gabriel's exclusion of Alexander from his list. Gabriel argues that all of Alexander's achievements were merely an implementation of his father's policies and the credit for his success should go to Philip. Philip created the Macedonian army as his instrument to conquer Persia. All Alexander had to do was point it in the general direction of the Persians.
This argument does not bear close examination. Caesar - on Gabriel's list - inherited a superb Roman military machine and introduced no innovations, using it as it was to conquer Gaul. Military innovation is not a necessary hallmark of a great general, i.e. he doesn't have to fix his army if it isn't broken.
At his greatest battle at Gaugamela Alexander did show tactical innovation. Shifting his entire army obliquely to the right he obliged the Persian left wing cavalry to attempt an outflanking manoeuvre to stop this movement. Foreseeing this, Alexander committed more of his cavalry to his right, obliging the Persians to commit more of theirs, and still more, until a gap opened between the Persian centre and left wing through which Alexander was able to gallop straight towards Darius, causing the Great King to flee. This was a brilliant and entirely original plan.
Gabriel also questions Alexander's grasp of the political dimension of war, seeing his conquest of Persia and western India merely as quest for glory. The facts however prove otherwise. Macedonia subdued the Persian Empire and the Successor states held it for centuries afterwards. For Gabriel, Alexander's great mistake was not to ensure a stable succession to the throne after his death, which resulted in the breakup of the Macedonian Empire. This may be true, but it does not mean he was not a great general. Hannibal had more flawed political thinking and achieved no lasting results against Rome, but he is still on the list.
Overall Great Generals of the Ancient World is well worth the read as a fascinating introduction to the nature of warfare and the conditions in the past that determined its successful conduct, using Antiquity's great commanders as study cases. It is a useful starting point for anyone interested in military history of this period (or rather of these periods). Gabriel has written biographies of most of the commanders he describes so this book serves as a good debut to the rest of his work.
April 28, 2023
Very difficult book to read as author is very preachy and almost goes out of his way to give unwarranted opinions�.potentially just for the sake of controversy.
Some reasonable analysis but not a great read.
Some reasonable analysis but not a great read.
September 16, 2019
The book was written in such a preachy and repetitive manner that I could not help flipping over the pages every few minutes to see whether I was any where near the endpoint. Everything written could be summed up succinctly in a few sentences, with further examples given per character.
March 29, 2024
I have always enjoyed Richard A. Gabriel's books and this one did not disappoint either. I am sure that many people did not like it because Gabriel did not pick Alexander the Great as one of the Great Generals and pretty much said he was only good because of the Phillip, his father and not his own abilities. It's interesting that he did pick Moses and Mohammed, which I would not have thought of but after reading the book, I can see his point. Picking Marcus Agrippa was a surprise but also his point I believe was proven. Another book that I highly recommend.
December 9, 2021
The author Richard Gabriel makes a great analysis of the generalship of the various generals of antiquity
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