The Great Commanders of the Medieval World, 454-1582

by Andrew Roberts (Editor)

What qualities made Attila the Hun a strategist of genius? How did Henry V of England achieve victory at Agincourt for the loss of a few hundred of his men, when the mounted French knights suffered casualties in the thousands? Why was Hernán Cortés able to lead a ragged band of men to bring down the extraordinary power of the Aztec empire? The answers to these and a myriad other fascinating questions can be found in Great Commanders of the Medieval World, a sumptuous chronological survey of the 25 greatest commanders of the medieval world. Compiled by an distinguished team of historians (including such names as Jonathan Sumption, Felipe Fernández-Armesto and John Julius Norwich) working under the general editorship of Andrew Roberts, Great Commanders of the Medieval World is an authoritative and beautifully illustrated account of the lives and careers of the 25 greatest military commanders of the period, from William the Conqueror to Genghis Khan, from the Black Prince to Tamerlaine, and from Joan of Arc to Süleyman the Magnificent. Every commander is profiled in a concise and informative 3000-word article which not only brings its subject vividly to life via a lively, fact-driven narrative, but also analyses and assesses his tactical and strategic gifts. As accessible and informative as it is rigorous and scholarly, Great Commanders of the Medieval World is the perfect introduction to its subject for the layperson - but also a stimulating and thought-provoking read for those with greater knowledge of military history. With its companion volumes, focusing on the great commanders of the ancient, early modern and modern eras, it forms an indispensable guide to the greatest generals the world has seen.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Medieval, War, Military Fiction, Medieval History

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Dr Andrew Roberts, who was born in 1963, took a first class honours degree in Modern History at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, from where he is an honorary senior scholar and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). He has written or edited twelve books, and appears regularly on radio and television around the world. Based in New York, he is an accomplished public speaker, and is represented by HarperCollins Speakers’ Bureau (See Speaking Engagements and Speaking Testimonials). He has recently lectured at Yale, Princeton and Stanford Universities and at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Jacob Stelling · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just felt a bit mediocre. There was very little analysis in each of the chapters and some of them just felt like narrative accounts of the achievements of a few successful generals. It was also unclear what the rationale for choosing each commander was.

There was no deeper thinking on either an individual or collective level about what makes a good commander in this period or why some succeeded where others failed. I think there was a missed opportunity here and I felt quite disappointed.

[Luke Gracias · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest lay in a specific time period namely the 12th - 14th Century and in particular with the Crusader leaders Bohomond I, Barbarossa, the Mongol generals namely Genghis and Kublai and the others like Alexander Nevsky, Baibars and Tamerlane.
So I can only comment on about a third of the book.
Verdict: It's a history book. Nothing more and nothing less. It sticks to the facts as best were recorded by the victors of their time. The period is too long and the characters too amazing to do any justice in such as quick read but it is a precise ready reckoner. If you like history, it is an easy read.

[Chris Wray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book profiles several significant military leaders during an interesting and important period of history, the 1000 years or so from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the advent of gunpowder in the 16th and 17th centuries. This period is interesting both in terms of military technology, strategy and tactics, and for how warfare related to society and culture more widely.

The development in battlefield tactics is fascinating, as the professional infantry of the Roman era gave way to heavy cavalry for the better part of a thousand years, before well-trained and disciplined infantry re-emerged as the main instrument of warfare. At the end of the Middle Ages, gunpowder again revolutionised warfare and changed world battlefields forever, as the widespread adoption of muskets, cannon, and explosives represented a fundamental shift in the art of war. While many of the phenomena of military leadership are timeless, such as charisma, heroism, judgement, loyalty and ruthlessness, in the age before gunpowder, such characteristics were at a premium as death was dealt face to face and hand to hand.

The Middle Ages were also a time marked by a dichotomy between destruction and creation; a time when genocidal warlords carved out kingdoms and empires, and a time when the fountains of many of our modern nations and societies were laid. Often, this dichotomy was evident in the same individual, but it strikes me that the best of the commanders profiled in this book did more than merely win battles. So, great as Belisarius, Tamerlane, and the Black Prince were, the likes of Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror and Kublai Khan soar above them as men who established nations and empires that would last.

Theodoric held his people group, the Ostgoths, together as they migrated from Thrace and Greece to Italy in the unstable period following the devastation of the Roman Empire by the Huns. He consistently displayed the ability to rally his soldiers in difficult situations. Theodoric's achievements are difficult to assess, but his attempt to impose apartheid between Romans and Goths seems to have been doomed to failure from the outset. A more able successor may have been able to build a sustainable society on the foundations he laid, as he was undoubtedly the greatest military leader among the various barbarian kings of his day. In any case, Theodoric's achievements died with him and had only a negligible impact on European history. Clovis's legacy, however, had a seminal impact on European history. He was the first great king of the Franks, and his reign was one of the most significant in early medieval Europe. He was energetic and ruthless, and led the Franks on highly successful military campaigns of conquest that transformed them from a minor, disunited people into the major power of Western Europe. His political abilities ensured that they would retain that position long after his death and would, more than any other great power, shape the future of medieval Europe.

Belisarius is presented as a great general and commander, described by Edward Gibbon as uniting liberality and justice in his person, daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid according to the exigencies of the moment, animated by hope in distress and modest and humble in prosperous fortune. Quite the endorsement! He was certainly the greatest of the late Roman generals, recapturing Carthage for the Eastern Empire, and almost reuniting East and West under the emperor in Byzantium. We don't know much about him as a strategist or tactician, but we do know that he was successful in almost every military expedition that he undertook.

Muhammad strikes me as a typical opportunistic warlord, albeit with a religious dimension, and as a thoroughly unattractive character. Interestingly, this chapter also makes clear that the modern, more liberal, Muslim claim that jihad is a battle waged within against the self is historically dubious at best.

No ruler of the early Middle Ages made a greater impression on posterity than the emperor Charlemagne. Even within his lifetime, he was called Charles the Great as he united a larger part of Western Europe into a single state than any ruler since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. One interesting side point relates to the way that the political structure of Europe was developing at this point in history. While Charlemagne was able to conquer the wealthy and centralised Lombard kingdom in less than 10 months, it took him years to subdue the tribal Saxons. This is because, in the early Middle Ages, political centralisation was not always an advantage. When power and leadership were concentrated in a few hands, an invader could simply remove the political elite and use the institutions of the state to control the rest of the population. This is what happened to the Lombards (and also to the English in 1066). After the conquest, Charlemagne named himself king of the Lombards, while the Lombard kingdom kept its separate identity, laws and institutions. In Saxony, this approach was impossible due to its tribal structure.

When Alfred the Great ascended to the throne of Wessex in 871, the old kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England stood on the brink of collapse. They had been driven to this point by the Vikings, who had emerged as a threat in the late 8th century. In the 9th century, Viking raiding parties had rapidly expanded into full-scale invasion armies, and one by one the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia had fallen. Wessex also briefly fell, but Alfred was able to defeat the Vikings in a brilliant counterattack to restore his kingdom (the battle of Eddington in 878), and went on to ensure its survival by developing an in-depth system of defence (the fortified towns known as burhs). This not only protected his people from future attacks, but also laid the foundations of the English nation, as these towns still form the backbone of the economy of the south of England. He also built a coastal patrol force, the first tentative steps towards a Royal Navy. In parallel with Alfred lived Hastein, the archetypal Viking freebooter, who left a trail of destruction behind him throughout Western Europe. In combat, Vikings typically formed a defensive shield wall to meet enemy attacks, and a wedge-shaped formation to break enemy shield walls in attack. The Vikings' main military advantage wasn't superior weapons, tactics or organisation, but mobility. Their longboats had a very shallow draft, allowing them to penetrate far inland, and when on land, they typically operated as mounted infantry before dismounting for battle. Most Vikings weren't full time pirates, as raiding was considered a short term option to raise funds to buy a farm or to win a share of land conquered abroad but unusually he never attempted to set up a kingdom but lived by plunder throughout his career and ultimately was frustrated by Alfred's system of burhs and achieved little.

William the Conqueror's reputation as a great commander rests securely on that most familiar of dates, 1066, and on his victory in one of the most decisive conflicts in military history, the Battle of Hastings. The Norman conquest meant that England received not just a new royal family but a new ruling class, a new culture and a new language. The almost mythical fame of this one year shouldn't block out the fact that he spent his whole adult life, some 40 years, in making or preparing for war. He was successful as he mastered all the disciplines of 11th-century warfare, moved his forces with speed, was prepared to be brutal, and ensured that he used extensive patrolling to ensure that he was well informed.

Bohemond I was a crusader who established the Norman crusader kingdom of Antioch. The wealth of experience he gained through decades of campaigning in southern Italy and Byzantium meant that he was a skilled general and brilliantly prepared to take a leading position in the First Crusade. He was brave, ambitious, unscrupulous and a sharp negotiator. In the words of one chronicler, he was always seeking to do the impossible. Frederick Barbarossa was also a crusader, taking part in both the Second and Third Crusades. More than that, he had a vision of Imperial glory, underpinned by a long and varied military career that established him as the most powerful warrior in the West as he undertook six campaigns in Northern Italy, established his dominance over the German nobility, and swept past the Greeks and Seljuk Turks.

The military record of Genghis Khan places him comfortably at the top table of world conquerors with Alexander the Great and Tamerlane. By the time he died, he had created a Mongol empire from nothing that stretched from the Pacific to the Caspian, and that was four times the size of Alexander's realm. Unlike Tamerlane's empire, it proved remarkably robust and continued to expand after his death, ultimately doubling in size under his sons and grandsons. While he established an empire that would last, Genghis was also an utterly ruthless commander. In particular his campaign in the Middle East from 1218 - 1221 was one of the most blood soaked in history, comparable to the genocidal outrages committed by the Assyrians in ancient history or the Nazis in more modern times. He brilliantly, and brutally, combined the sword and the sceptre and is a giant of world, never mind military, history. Kublai Khan was Genghis's grandson and the fifth Great Khan of the Mongols. When he completed the conquest of China in 1279 and established the Yuan dynasty, he was the most powerful man on earth, his authority recognised by the junior branches of the Mongol Empire throughout Asia. While Genghis's conquests were carried out with a brutal savagery, Kublai ushered in a new era of civilisation. Genghis was the archetype of the nomadic conqueror of the steppes, while Kublai was the master of a noble, sedentary society. While martially ferocious, Kublai was also a patron of literature, culture and science and successfully incorporated China into the Mongol realm.

Alexander Nevsky is a big part of Russia's national myth, but his military achievements seem to be as much myth as reality. Sultan Baibars, on the other hand, can justly claim to be the most formidable warrior of the medieval Islamic world, rising from a slave to be the founder of the Mamluk dynasty. He defeated the previously invincible Mongols at the battle of Ayn Jalut in 1260 and ruled Egypt and Syria for the next seventeen years. Saladin dominates the popular imagination today as the emblematic figure of the Muslim-Crusader conflict, an icon of chivalric virtue in the West and the man who recaptured Jerusalem for Islam. However, it was Baibars who broke the Frankish stranglehold on the coast and made their expulsion from the mainland Levant inevitable. The most important battle of Baibar's career was probably Ayn Jalut, although he wasn't yet the commander. Similarly, the Mamluks' greatest victory came a couple of years after Baibar’s death when they routed the Persian Mongols at the battle of Homs in 1281. He was ruthless, calculating, and successfully resisted the most lethal military force of his day, arguably taking over that mantle for his armies.

Tamerlane is introduced as follows: "In the closing decades of the fourteenth century, the world's greatest conqueror surged forth unannounced from Central Asia. Tamerlane blazed through the continent like a firestorm, toppling kings and empires with contemptuous ease, riding to victory after victory at the head of his ferocious army of mounted Tatar archers." However, none of it would last. He lived 70 years, and his blood had barely cooled before the internecine conflicts he warned against on his deathbed exploded. The empire he had laboured so carefully and cruelly to build started crumbling away, and within a century of his death, it had vanished altogether.

The Black Prince was Edward, the Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, and the oldest son of Edward III. If generalship is the art of winning pitched battles, then Edward was unquestionably the greatest general of his day and one of the greatest of the European Middle Ages. He was born into a world in which military methods were evolving rapidly. For several hundred years, the chief instrument of war had been the heavy cavalryman, mounted on a heavy charger, fully armoured, and armed with lance, sword, axe and mace. However, the heavy cavalry charge was generally ineffective against disciplined men fighting on foot in prepared positions, and they were also highly vulnerable to mass archery. These lessons were better learned by the English than by any other European nation, as they developed battlefield tactics over the next fifty years that revolutionised European warfare. The hallmark of the English method was the use of dismounted cavalry fighting on foot, both defensively and offensively, with the horses only used for the rout at the end and the pursuit after battle. This dismounted cavalry was supported by dense lines of archers, who generally made up at least one-third of the army, and two-thirds by the end of the fourteenth century. The English, alone among European nations, made the longbow a formidable battlefield weapon. With their longer range and rapid rate of fire, longbows completely outclassed the crossbows used by other European armies. The coordinated use of dismounted cavalry and longbowmen required commanders to exercise a far greater level of control over formations during battle than had been called for before, and manoeuvring large bodies of men-at-arms who had never trained together became one of the perennial problems of medieval battlefields. This required outstanding judgement and timing, the establishment of battlefield staff and a chain of command, and means of communicating with subordinates. The Black Prince rose to the challenge better than any of his contemporaries, winning one of the most decisive victories of the Hundred Years War at Poitiers in 1356. However, there is more to generalship than battlefield tactics, and there is more to politics than force of arms, and this is where Edward's weaknesses were most apparent. Such was the prestige enjoyed by the profession of arms in the late Middle Ages that, after his death, no one recalled his political incompetence or questioned what his victories had achieved. It was enough that the Black Prince had been physically impressive, courageous in the face of danger, and had won every battle he had fought.

Henry V won his most famous victory at Agincourt in 1415, but he had also fought alongside his father at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. This was the first fight between two armies with equal numbers of skilled longbowmen, and provided a foretaste of the horrors to come in the War of the Roses. Henry V died in 1422 at the age of thirty-four, six weeks before he would have ascended to the crown of France. If he had lived another twenty years, then he would have been able to consolidate and expand on his achievements, as Agincourt was a victory of discipline and calm, fearless command, something Henry exercised for a subsequent seven years of successful campaigning in France and organisation at home. One medieval historian describes him like this: "Take him all round he was, I think, the greatest man who ever ruled England." Joan of Arc was a contemporary of Henry V, and another figure who seems to me to be more myth and legend than substance, as she had limited to no military skills. Her greatest achievement was perhaps in providing a rallying point for the French armies, but she seems to have been used by the powerful French nobles and so is ultimately a tragic figure rather than a great commander.

Sultan Mehmet II changed the course of history when he captured Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine Empire, finally wiping out the last remnant of the Romans. He was cruel, but also highly cultured, a great ruler, and a superb commander. Hernán Cortés, on the other hand, had never served as a professional soldier and was at best tactically and strategically unremarkable. Yet, from 1519 to 1521, he led an expedition of a few hundred ragged and ill-equipped adventurers, against the orders of his superiors and the law of his king, through unexplored environments and unknown enemies, to conquer one of the most dynamic and aggressive empires of the day. The outcome was startling and established the first substantial overseas empire ruled from Europe. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan depended on the tribute given by its vassals. This simultaneously demonstrated the reach of Aztec power but also showed its vulnerability if tribute was withheld. The Aztecs were highly aggressive, as they were dependent on war to replenish supplies of tribute and sacrificial blood. While they were perhaps overextended, they were confident, dynamic and aggressive. The encounter between Aztecs and Spaniards was therefore a clash of rival imperialists. Spanish technology had little influence, as horses, heavy armour, and firearms were mostly irrelevant, and native allies did most of the fighting. In the end, despite his deficiencies in military experience and training, Cortés showed outstanding qualities of leadership in conquering Mexico for Spain.

During the first half of the sixteenth century, four giants bestrode Europe. They were the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, King Henry VIII of England, King Francis I of France and the Ottoman Sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent. Suleyman added to his already vast empire with conquests in Hungary, the Balkans, Central Europe, Persia and the Mediterranean. Gonzalo De Cordoba was a Spanish general whose heritage survived him for a hundred and fifty years, allowing the Spanish tercios to dominate Europe’s battlefields until the Thirty Years War. He created the first divisions in the modern sense, effectively small self-contained armies much like the old Roman legions with infantry, heavy cavalry, light cavalry and artillery. Akbar the Great was the most successful military leader of the Mughals who ruled in India from 1526-1540 and 1555-1707, and Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese general whose application of new military technology, strategic skill, creation of a loyal and cohesive army, and ruthless pragmitism, led to the eventual reunification of Japan.

Some of these chapters were better than others, but overall, this was an enjoyable introduction to some important characters in global military history.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very "OK". A "quick read" on what the author terms great commanders. However he than goes on to equate "Commanders" to military conquests, little is given to leadership qualities or positive enhancements made by these men to lands and/or peoples. In short, it is a very high level review of military victors and generally their primary campaigns/battles. Good for sitting at an airport since each chapter targets a differing leader.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinct accounts of a league of extraordinary men - and one woman - who wrote themselves into history.... missed a few names