Top 5 Military Commanders
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2023
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Boudicca. These are the names that normally top the list when it comes to the greatest military leaders in history, but today’s guest is taking a slightly different approach.
Professor of War Studies at University of Warwick, Anthony King, is drawing on his experience with some of the most senior military leaders to rank his top five divisional commanders based on what he’s learnt about command, through their actions.
What do you think needs to be taken into consideration to decide whether a commander is good or bad? Is It number of wins or defeats? Is it execution of logistics or operational sense? Is it their officer selection or how they deploy a division?
Who would be in your list? And do you agree with Professor King?
Anthony King is the author of Command: The Twenty-First Century General.
This episode was produced by Elena Guthrie, and edited by Joseph Knight.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you had to list them, who would be your top five military commanders in history? |
| 0:06.0 | Perhaps Napoleon, Wellington, Eisenhower, Frederick the Great, Monti, Bodicea, or Budica, |
| 0:12.0 | depending where you come from. The truth is the list would be |
| 0:15.6 | different for all of us. So how do we settle this debate? Well I'm your host James Rogers and |
| 0:20.4 | here to help us distinguish what makes a great or disastrous military |
| 0:25.3 | commander. I've invited Professor Tony King onto the podcast. Tony is Professor |
| 0:29.9 | of War Studies at the University of Warwick in the UK and the author of Command, the 21st century |
| 0:35.2 | general. |
| 0:36.2 | It's from Tony's decades of experience of working with the highest levels of military |
| 0:40.2 | leadership that we get a unique insight into his top five military commanders. military history, and on Instagram at James Rogers history. But now here is the fantastic Tony King |
| 0:56.8 | on his top five. Enjoy. Hi Tony, welcome to the Warfare Podcast. How you doing? |
| 1:12.9 | Yeah, I'm really well. |
| 1:13.6 | Thank you and thank you for inviting me. |
| 1:15.0 | It's lovely to be here and talking. |
| 1:16.5 | It's great to have you on the podcast. |
| 1:17.6 | I actually can't believe this is the first time |
| 1:19.8 | we've got you on the pod. |
| 1:21.5 | We've been going for a couple of years. This is an outrage Tony. |
| 1:24.4 | Well, it's nice to be here. That's what I'd say. You are of course the author of numerous books. You most |
| 1:29.8 | focus on urban warfare at the moment. You're a very busy man. We're very happy you've given us the time. |
| 1:34.4 | Lots of work on Ukraine of course currently. |
| 1:37.2 | But you've authored a book called Command, the 21st century general published by Cambridge University Press. |
... |
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