History's Greatest Commanders

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In war, leadership matters. Poorly trained or outnumbered armies have often been led to victory by the sheer brilliance of their leaders. Celebrated or criticised, loved or hated, those who forged their legacies on the battlefield are some of the most famous people in human history. But what makes them great? Is it the reverence they inspire in their troops, or their aptitude for logistics and supply? And how did their legacies influence one another?

For this episode, Dan is joined by an anonymous guest, author of the blog The Angry Staff Officer and commentator on all things military history. By studying the achievements of everyone from Alexander the Great to Dwight D. Eisenhower, they'll put forward their picks for history's greatest commanders.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dan Snow's History It, to listen to all of our episodes ad-free, get bonus
0:05.5	content and watch hundreds of history documentaries.
0:08.9	Download the History It app or go to historyit.com slash subscribe.
0:12.9	And if you're an Apple listener, you can subscribe for new ad-free episodes within the Apple
0:17.3	app.
0:18.3	Hello and welcome to Dan Snow's History It, what episode I've got for you today.
0:25.2	Alexander the Great once said, I'm not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep.
0:31.5	I'm afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
0:36.1	In war, folks, leadership matters.
0:39.2	There have been many interesting examples of a bad, underperforming army being turned
0:44.6	into a good, successful army simply by changing the leader.
0:49.4	Napoleon electrified a rag-tag mutinous, shoeless, hopeless bunch of Frenchmen, the French
0:57.6	army in Italy in the 1790s and led them to victory after victory.
1:03.2	Guy Lippus the Spartan arrived in Syracuse during the Athenian siege during the Polypinesian
1:08.0	War and his presence is regarded as the key turning point in that campaign that would
1:12.8	prove such a heubristic catastrophe for the Athenians.
1:17.4	I think that's why traditional history really was the story of great men of great commanders.
1:22.9	When I was growing up, my bookshelves, the bookshelves in our house were just full of books
1:27.3	of great commanders studying their successes.
1:30.3	They were almost semi-divine figures.
1:32.4	You felt they had powers beyond us mortals.
1:35.5	To be fair, we took our lead from those practitioners of war themselves, those great men.
	...

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