(6) Great Commanders of the Far East

Ancient East Asia (1100 BC-300 AD)

Jiang Ziya (1100 BC-1030 BC) -

Sun Bin (380 BC-316 BC) -

Bai Qi (320 BC-257 BC) -

Wang Jian (280 BC-220 BC) -

Ying Zheng "Qin Shi Huangdi" (260 BC-210 BC) -

Xiang Yu (232 BC-202 BC) -

Han Xin (230 BC-196 BC) -

Wei Qing (160 BC-106 BC) -

Liu Xiu "Emperor Guangwu" (5 BC-57 AD) -

Ban Chao (32-102) -

Cao Cao (155-220) -

Sima Yi (179-251) -

Zhuge Liang (181-234) -

Sun Ce (175-200) -

Zhou Yu (175-210) - A general which served the Sun house in the state of Wu during the Three Kingdoms. He first served as an officer, administrator and strategist under Sun Jian and his son Sun Ce. Under Sun Quan he was given more commands and took part alongside Cheng Pu in the campaign against Huang Zu (a general under Liu Biao in Jing Province) in 208. In that same year he organized an army of 30,000 men and together with Cheng Pu and their ally Liu Bei they fought the massive naval battle at Chibi (Redcliff), which led to the Han Empire being divided into three states. Afterwards Zhou Yu, Liu Bei and Cheng Pu campaigned against Cao Ren in Jing Province. Zhou Yu died in the year 210 while planning an invasion of Yi Province in the west (controlled by warlord Liu Zhang) and was succeeded in his duties by Lu Su.

Sun Quan (182-252) -

Wang Jun (206-286) -


Imperial East Asia (300-1300)

Huan Wen (312-373) -

Xie Xuan (343-388) - A general of the declining Jin Dynasty after the barbarian invasions which swept northern China. Xie Xuan served under the general Huan Wen and his brother Huan Huo in fighting the state of Former Qin, a state created by sinicized Di people which had conquered the north by the 4th century. With the support of the Jin chancellor Xie An, he was promoted. Organizing a well trained army he relieved the city of Pengcheng in 378. Fu Jian finally carried out a massive invasion of the south which culminated in Xie Xuan's victory against Former Qin at the Fei River (383), he successfully defended the Jin Dynasty and prevented the Di barbarians from conquering the south. Due to this victory and the death of prominent general and lord Huan Chong, Xie Xuan was again promoted. Afterwards he carried out a counterattack against Former Qin as far north as the Yellow River. Then relieved the Former Qin armies, who were under attack in Yecheng by Murong Chui of Later Yan. Further operations were ended as Murong Chui took up a strong position behind the Yellow River, and so Xie Xuan withdrew. Not long after this campaign Xie Xuan fell ill and died.

Liu Yu "Emperor Wu" (363-422)

Gwanggaeto (374-413)

Yang Jian "Emperor Wen" (541-604)

Li Shimin "Emperor Taizong" (598-649)

Li Jing (571-649)

Li Shiji (594-669)

Su Dingfang (591-667)

Xue Rengui (614-683)

Guo Ziyi (697-781)

Abaoji "Emperor Taizu" (872-926)

Zhao Kuangyin "Emperor Taizu" (927-976)

Wanyan Aguda "Emperor Taizu" (1068-1123)

Yue Fei (1103-1142)

Genghis Khan (1162-1227)

Mukhali (1170-1223)

Subutai (1175-1248)

Batu Khan (1207-1255)

Kublai Khan "Emperor Shizu" (1215-1294)

Tran Hung Dao (1228-1300)


Early Modern East Asia (1300 - 1800)

Zhu Yuanzhang "Hongwu Emperor" (1328-1398)

Fu Youde (1327-1394)

Feng Sheng (1330-1395)

Xu Da (1332-1385)

Lan Yu (1330-1393)

Mu Ying (1345-1392)

Zhu Di "Yongle Emperor" (1360-1424)

Zheng He (1371-1435)

Qi Jiguang (1528-1588)

Li Chengliang (1526-1618)

Konishi Yukinaga (1555-1600)

Kwon Yul (1537-1599)

Yi Sun Sin (1545-1598)

Bayinnaung (1516-1581)

Naresuan (1555-1605)

Nurhachi (1559-1626)

Dorgon (1612-1650)

Zheng Chenggong (1624-1662)

Aisin Gioro Xuanye "Kangxi Emperor" (1654-1722)

Alaungpaya (1714-1760)

Zhao Hui (1708-1764)

Fukanggan (1753-1796)


Japanese Feudal Era (500-1800)

Taira Tomomori (1152-1185) -

Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159-1189) -

Mori Motonari (1497-1571) -

Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) -

Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578) -

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) -

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) -

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) -

Kuki Yoshitaka (1542-1600) -

Shimazu Yoshihiro (1535-1619) -

(5) Great Commanders of the Late Modern Era

First World War & Communist Revolution (1900-1924)

Edmund Allenby (1861-1936) -

John Jellicoe (1859-1935) -

Radomir Putnik (1847-1917) -

Joseph Gallieni (1849-1916) -

Louis Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934) -

Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) -

Philippe Petain (1856-1951) -

August von Mackensen (1849-1945) -

Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922) -

Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) -

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870-1964) -

Reinhard Scheer (1863-1928) -

Franz von Hipper (1863-1932) -

Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938) -

Jozef Pilsudski (1867-1935) -

Mikhail Frunze (1885-1925) -


Interwar and Second World War (1924-1945)

Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951)

Rodolfo Graziani (1882-1955)

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

Gunther von Kluge (1882-1944) - Originally a staff officer during the First World War, he was promoted to field commands in the interwar period. During the Second World War he gained experience in Army commands and then finally Army Group command, which gave him an advantage over many contemporaries. He commanded 4th Army in northern Poland (under Bock), 4th Army as part of the central thrust in France (under Rundstedt) and 4th Army as part of the central attack in Russia and in the Battle of Moscow (again under Bock). At the end of 1941 he replaced Bock as commander of Army Group Center. Largely he had commanded the bloody defensive operations of Army Group Center from the very end of 1941 until 1944. Even carrying out strategic withdrawals such as Operation Buffel. He was also in command of one of the Army Groups in Operation Citadel, along the northern sector of the Kursk salient which included Orel. After Rundstedt had failed to defend Normandy, he was replaced by Gunther von Kluge. Generally being more competent than his predecessors, he was nonetheless unable to hold the line, no counter offensive succeeded, and was forced to withdraw towards the Seine and Loire rivers. On 19 August he drank cyanide either for fear of implication in the Bomb Plot or for fear of being defeated in France.

Albert Kesselring (1885-1960) -

Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) -

Erich von Manstein (1887-1973) -

Karl Doenitz (1891-1980) -

Walter Model (1891-1945) -

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) -

Aleksander Vasilevsky (1895-1977) -

Georgy Zhukov (1896-1974) -

Konstantin Rokossovsky (1896-1968) -

Nikolai Vatutin (1901-1944)

Andrew Cunningham (1883-1963)

George S. Patton (1885-1945)

Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976)

William Slim (1891-1970)

Chester Nimitz (1885-1966)

Shunroku Hata (1879-1962)

Hisaichi Terauchi (1879-1946)

Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943)

Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885-1946)

Shojiro Iida (1888-1980)

Jiang Jieshi (1887-1975)


Cold War & Fall of Empires (1945-1991)

Peng Dehuai (1898-1974) -

Lin Biao (1907-1971) -

Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013) -

Sam Hormusji Manekshaw (1914-2008) -

Norman Schwarzkopf (1934-2012) -

(4) Great Commanders of the Early Modern Era

Enlightenment Era (1700-1792)

Baji Rao (1700-1740)

John Churchill duke of Marlborough (1650-1722)

Eugene de Savoie (1663-1736)

Claude de Villars (1653-1734)

Peter the Great (1672-1725)

Charles XII of Sweden (1682-1718)

Maurice de Saxe (1696-1750)

Frederick II the Great (1712-1786)

Leopold Joseph von Daun (1705-1766)

Ernst Gideon von Laudon (1717-1790)

Ferdinand of Brunswick (1721-1792)

Edward Hawke (1705-1781)

Nader Shah (1698-1747)

Ahmad Khan Abdali (1722-1772)

George Washington (1731-1799)

George Rodney (1718-1792)

Pierre Andre de Suffren (1729-1788)

Alexander Suvorov (1730-1800)

Fyodor Ushakov (1745-1817)

Tipu Sultan (1750-1799)


Napoleonic Wars & Age of Revolution (1792-1848)

Dmitry Senyavin (1763-1831)

Mikhail Barclay de Tolly (1761-1818) - A prominent Russian commander due to his campaigns in Finland (1808/09), Russia (1812), Poland and Germany (1813) and France (1814). Initially an officer serving against the Turks (1787-1792), Swedes (1788-1790), in Poland (1794) and finally against the French during the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807). He became the driving force behind the Russian military reforms after 1808 (during which he commanded the war against Sweden) and the key Russian commander in opposing Napoleon for most of 1812. He then succeeded Milkhail Kutuzov in directing the Russian effort from April 1813, as well as in 1814 and 1815.

Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher (1742-1819)

Horatio Nelson (1758-1805)

Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

Andre Massena (1758-1817)

Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult (1769-1851)

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) - 

Louis Gabriel Suchet (1770-1826)

Louis Nicolas Davout (1770-1823)

Karl von Osterreich-Teschen (1771-1847)

Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (1766-1858)

Jose de San Martin (1778-1850)

Simon Bolivar (1783-1830)

Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770-1843)

Ibrahim Pasha (1789-1848)

Shaka Zulu (1787-1828)

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

Winfield Scott (1786-1866)


Nationalism, Colonialism & the Industrial Era (1848-1900)

Omar Pasha (1806-1871)

Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891)

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)

Patrice de MacMahon (1808-1893)

Louis Faidherbe (1818-1889)

Amedee Courbet (1827-1885)

Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri (1808-1883)

Ivan Paskevich (1782-1856)

Konstantin von Kaufman (1818-1882)

Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)

Ulysses Grant (1822-1885)

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)

David Farragut (1801-1870)

William Thomas Sampson (1840-1902)

Manuel Baquedano (1823-1897)

Saigo Takamori (1828-1877)

Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922) - An officer from Choshu who fought during the Boshin "Revolution" (1868-1869). He was instrumental in building the Imperial Japanese Army, after the civil war, and developing Japanese military doctrine and strategy. He was one of the generals which suppressed the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) and served in multiple positions including War Minister. He commanded the First Army in Korea during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) until December of 1894 after he crossed the Yalu River into Manchuria. He came down with an illness and had to return to Japan. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) he played a key organizational and strategic role as Chief of General Staff.


Oyama Iwao (1842-1916)

Togo Heihachiro (1848-1934)

Charles John Napier (1786-1860)

James Bremer (1786-1850)

Hugh Gough (1779-1869)

Garnet Wolseley (1833-1913)

Frederick Roberts (1832-1914) 

Herbert Kitchener (1850-1916)