The Great Commanders
History's Most Brilliant Military Minds
The generals and rulers whose military genius shaped the map of the world - from Alexander to Napoleon, from Caesar to Eisenhower.
Profiles in this collection
Leonidas I
Leonidas I was the Spartan king who led a small Greek force - including his famous 300 Spartans - against the vast Persian army of Xerxes at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. Though the Greeks were annihilated, their sacrifice delayed the Persian advance and became the most celebrated example of military courage and self-sacrifice in Western history.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great was the Macedonian king who, between 334 and 323 BCE, conquered the Persian Empire and extended Greek power from Egypt to India, creating the largest empire the ancient world had yet seen. His campaigns spread Greek culture across a vast area, inaugurating the Hellenistic age and reshaping the political geography of the ancient world for centuries.
Hannibal Barca
Carthaginian general who led one of the most audacious military campaigns in history, crossing the Alps with war elephants to invade Italy. For over fifteen years he ravaged the Italian peninsula, inflicting catastrophic defeats on Rome and forever changing the art of war.
Scipio Africanus
The Roman general who defeated Hannibal Barca at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, ending the Second Punic War and establishing Rome as the dominant power of the Mediterranean. Bold, charismatic, and unconventional, he transformed Roman military strategy by taking the war to Africa.
Julius Caesar
Roman general and dictator whose conquest of Gaul, crossing of the Rubicon, and seizure of power transformed the Roman Republic into the foundation for an empire. His assassination on the Ides of March is one of the most dramatic events in Western history.
Charlemagne
King of the Franks and Lombards who united most of Western Europe for the first time since the fall of Rome. Crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day 800, he launched a cultural revival known as the Carolingian Renaissance and is considered the father of both French and German monarchy.
Richard the Lionheart
King of England famed as one of the greatest warrior-kings of the Middle Ages. He led the Third Crusade, won major victories against Saladin, and spent barely six months of his ten-year reign in England. His legend as the chivalric ideal endured for centuries.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A Corsican-born military genius who rose from artillery officer to Emperor of the French, Napoleon conquered much of Europe before his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. His Napoleonic Code reformed legal systems across Europe, and his wars redrew the map of the continent.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
The British general who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, ending over two decades of European warfare. Wellington first proved himself in India, then drove the French from Spain in the Peninsular War before commanding the Allied forces at the decisive battle of the age. He later served as Prime Minister.
Horatio Nelson
The most celebrated admiral in British history, Nelson won a series of decisive naval victories against Napoleon's forces, culminating in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where he destroyed the combined French and Spanish fleets but was killed by a sniper's bullet at the moment of his greatest triumph.
Abraham Lincoln
The 16th President of the United States, who preserved the Union during the Civil War and abolished slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. Assassinated at Ford's Theatre, he became a martyr for the cause of freedom.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II, planning and executing the D-Day invasion of Normandy, then as the 34th President of the United States. He guided America through the early Cold War with a steady hand, built the Interstate Highway System, and warned against the "military-industrial complex."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill led Britain through its darkest hours in World War II, rallying the nation with his oratory and refusing to surrender when defeat seemed inevitable. A soldier, journalist, historian, painter, and Nobel Prize-winning author, he was voted the greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 BBC poll.