How Great Generals Win

This is the first book I read on war strategies. It is really a fascinating read, and in a way reads like a thriller. The battlefield is like a chess game, with opponents trying to outsmart and deceive each other. The book offers the reader a fascinating journey through the minds of some of the most famous generals in history. Readers will be introduced to the strategies of Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, William Tecumesh Sherman, T. E. Lawrence, Sir Edmund Allenby, Mao Zedong, Heinz Guderian, Erich von Manstein, Erwin Rommel, and Douglas MacArthur. The author points out the exceptional as well as the bad choices that generals make. The reader will learn many war strategies which are fascinating to say the very least. For example, when fighting armies with elephants, the Romans shook bells, scarring the elephants and making them useless for battle. Generals can succeed in one war but utterly fail in another. MacArthur is referred to by the author as the Jekyll and Hyde. In the Pacific theatre, MacArthur gained fame as an invincible general. However, during the Korean War, he made one mistake after another, and exposed his armies to unnecessary danger. Despite his tactical disasters during the Korean War, his fame and legend led the Truman administration to approve his disastrous strategies (as a footnote, many historians note that the United States has not won a single war since World War II!). Deception is the main key to victory. Hannibal took his army through the formidable swamps of the Arnus River in Tuscany in 217 B.C. rather than face the Roman army directly. Not expecting such a move, the Romans left the route open, permitting Hannibal to emerge behind the Roman army with a clear road to Rome. This forced the Romans to abandon their strong position and rush after the Carthaginians. Hannibal ambushed the dislocated Romans at Lake Trasimene and destroyed nearly their entire army. Almost 70 thousand Romans dies that day! The Carthaginians in Spain believed Scipio Africanus would strike at their armies and left unguarded their capital and principal port, New Carthage. But Scipio had deceived his enemies. He seized New Carthage in 209 B.C., cut off the main sea connection with Carthage, caused several Spanish tribes to come over to the Romans, and abruptly threw the Carthaginians on the strategic defensive. Genghis Khan was another master of deception. He focused the attention of the Khwarezmian army by fierce attacks on cities along the Syr Darya in Turkestan in 1220. He then led a Mongol army across the supposedly impassable Kyzyl Kum to seize Bokhara, far in the enemy rear, isolating the Khwarezmian capital of Samarkand and blocking reinforcements from the south. In a single quick campaign, the Mongols captured Samarkand and destroyed the Khwarezmian Empire. By demonstrating with part of his army at Valenza on the Po River in northern Italy in 1796, Napoleon convinced the

Why do some generals do better than others? Bevin Alexander takes some of the great generals out of history and examines why they did so well. The author tries to point out the common traits and tactics each general shared. The selection of generals is interesting - Jackson and Sherman are picked over Lee and Grant. But Mr. Alexander is also willing to point out some of the bad choices that these good generals sometimes made. Napoleon, for example, did great in Italy but in latter battles used frontal attacks instead of mobility and misdirection. He let the size of his army get in the way of good generalship. The final chapter tries to tie it all together, listing simple ideas or rules, that all great generals followed.

Bevin Alexander's book may redefine the meaning of "great" commander for some of its readers. A lot of readers are in the same classroom as I when it comes to military history. I grew up accepting that the generals presented to me in history class were the best because my betters said they were. Especially,when it came to the Civil War. They don't cast bronzes of incompetents, right? Maybe, maybe not, but Mr. Alexander did a convincing job explaining why some of history's spotlights are on the wrong statues. A lack of military history won't prevent anyone from reading and enjoying his book. He will set the stage for each adventure and allow the reader to be swept along by the likes of Hannibal, Lawrence of Arabia and Erwin Rommel without loosing him. These stories are real, first class, adventures and that's how Mr. Alexander's book comes across.

This is the best written compilation of short histories of many pivotal battles in world history that I have ever read. The chapters on the Civil War and Hannibal are outstanding. I appreciated the maps with each chapter, but many geographic points the author thought were important enough to put in the narrative were not put on the maps, such as Sherman's multiple column routes through the Southern states (some shaded or dotted map arrows would have added to the story).

This is a superbly written book by my favorite military history writer. Alexander writes in a very readable style. Additionally, the maps and charts are easy to understand and complement each chapter. Of particular note are the chapters on Hannibal and then Scipio Africanus (the Roman General who beat him) and Lee (or how General Lee should have fought the Battle of Gettysburg).