Jebusrocks

I will admit, I have never heard of Lautaro before I talked to you; and these generals who are not in the mainstream are generally ignored on by Western civilization (and vice versa). In example, I consider Yi Sun Sin to be one, if not the greatest of admirals in World History. Yet until recently, he was completely ignored in most books in naval warfare other than maybe an excerpt about how he created the world's first ironclad ship

Just out of curiosity, did Lautauro defeat them via guerilla warfare or by other methods? If you have already posted this, plz tell me which page cuz I'm quite interested in such figures

smithy

so u think if caesar had an army of gauls he would still of ruled most of europe? u must be kidding if u think that. he was a good commander but he also had the best infantry in the world behind him. if u need proof just look at the british empire they didnt reli have any famous generals but we still conquered quater of the world why??? cuz we had the best navy and one of the best armies in the world at the time. caesar is still my number 2 but he did have the help of his legions and they where like the wmd of there time

Belisarius

Artillery which needed a crew of 3, that leaves 180 men to do the fighting assuming a full strength cohort.

Each Century was normally allocated a bolt throwing engine, and each Cohort a Stone throwing machine. Assuming all 10 cohorts took the field that gives a nominal 10 stone throwers and 60 bolt throwers. I can accept 100 machines allocated to a legion, but please...

pinguin

Absolutely. All the historical information of the World has been based on the experiences of the Anglosaxon peoples and theirs allies. The rest of the world haven't count at all, and there is no much information in English tongue, with the exception of specialists.

China, before the studies of Needham, was also ignored. Only in the last decades the history of China have started to be known worldwide. Not to long ago westerner though gunpowder was invented by Bacon and printing by Guttenberg. Just imagine that.

The history of Lautaro is really amazing. The Spaniards invaded Chile with relative easy, helped by theirs Inca allies. However, when they tried to spread south to the rain forests of Araucania they met with the ferious resistence of a barbarian people, that keep them at bay with wathever they have. However, Spaniards massacred many, because the fighting techniques of Europeans were superior. In one of those raids, and after killing part of his family, Spaniards captured a Mapuche teenager that the conqueror himself addopted as his helper.
Lautaro lived several years among the Spaniards, learning theirs ways of fighting, theirs vices and weakness. And then escaped back to the rainy forests. There he tought his countrymen those tactics and the way to stop Spaniards. He also brough some horses.

Spaniards since have to confront well disciplined armies, forts, and traps with pikes where the Spanish riders ended crashed.

Lautaro started to raid Spanish towns and burn all southern Chile, and forced Spaniards to retreat. Afterwars a traitor sold him to the Spaniards who executed him, but the impact of Lautaro was such that the Spaniards never conquered Araucania, and just stopped further attacks by protecting its frontiers.

That was the start of the War of Arauco that lasted three centuries.

When the Spanish colonies of South America started theirs fight for freedom, they founded a secret society to coordinate the actions. That secret society was the Lautaro Lodge. Since, Lautaro is very well know in Latin America as a heroe of the independence of the region.

Labienus

this argument is bullshit, you can say that with every great commander. Alexander without his companion cavalry/phalanxes, Hannibal without his numidian cavalry, Napoleon without the Grande Armée, etc.

A FACT is that Caesar showed military genius in all his campaigns. You are saying that he was good because of his army, well pompey's army wasn't exactly a pathetic rabble of peasants like darius III's army...

DIVUS IVLIVS

*coughs*

I'm sure that Caesar's having Roman Legions really gave him a total advantage when he was fighting other Roman Legions in Italy, Spain, Greece, Macedonia, Illyria, Africa, Spain (I mention Spain twice because he fought two seperate Campaigns against Romans there - one in Hispania Ulterior and one in Hispania Interior). Indeed, it was Caesar's army that must have given him all the advantage in Africa when he was fighting an army of veteran warriors under the command of Labienus that massively outnumbered his own force, which initially effectively consisted only of a force of recent recruits with a few veteran officers

Not to mention, Caesar's army was most certainly what gave him the advantage in Egypt when he fought the army mercenary Roman Legions that the Ptolemies had to offer as well as a veritable horde of other soldiers from throughout the East and Alexandria itself, his own best strength other than two veteran legions badly short of men being Jewish Auxillaries.

And indeed, this clearly applies to Caesar's phenomenal campaign against Pharnaces of Pontus, whose army had successfully annihilated veteran Roman armies larger than the one that Caesar was able to gather.

For that matter, the Legionary armies of Numidia, which were modelled off the Roman army but also had the famed Numidian Cavalry (amongst the best in the world at the time) and Light Infantry as well as elephants, were most surely defeated by Caesar's army rather than his brilliant tactics at Ruspina and Thapsus.

And naturally, the fact that the "barbarians" that Caesar fought in Spain had defeated every other Roman governor before him makes little difference in our considerations.

And you may be interested to know that much of Caesar's army in Gaul did in fact consist of... Gauls. The thing was that Caesar armed and trained them in the manner of Roman legionaries until they became indistinguishable from the real thing. So Caesar did indeed have an army of Gauls in a way.

Your argument is slightly ironic in that you are arguing for the Mongols, who depended just as much on the superiority of miliatry organization as the Romans did.

Strategically Subutai cannot lift a finger against Caesar. Tactically neither.

Personally I am rather fond of using the Battle of the Great Plains argument. In this battle Scipio Africanus wiped out a Carthaginian army that consisted of an ill-fed rabble of scarecrows, poorly armed, and likely outnumbered by the Romans. And yet the battle is still considered one of the best of all time because in it Scipio demonstrated tactical sophistication that was nothing if not astonishing, second in many ways only to some of Caesar's battles.

It isn't the difficulty of winning the battle (although that is certainly something to look at) so much as the brilliance demonstrated in doing so that I look at.

DIVUS IVLIVS

Pinguin, in response to your rather pathetic reply to me two pages back I will simply say that you did exactly what I thought you would - try to bluff your way out of the fact that you can bring nothing in relating to real military organization and logostics.

Armies of Europe in the 17th century were rabble, pure and simple. They might have been well-organized rabble with good weapons at times, but in the ways that really matter rabble they remained - not a scratch on the great armies of the Ancient World, be the Roman, Hellenistic, or otherwise.

pinguin

Guy, did you notice than in the paragraph above you said nothing? Absolutely nothing! Except that you repeat a mantra with your own personal prejudices about me.

Come on, if you are smart, FOCUS to the topic.

[quote=DIVUS IVLIVS;112481
Armies of Europe in the 17th century were rabble, pure and simple. They might have been well-organized rabble with good weapons at times, but in the ways that really matter rabble they remained - not a scratch on the great armies of the Ancient World, be the Roman, Hellenistic, or otherwise.[/quote]

They would have defeated Romans with certainty, though. They had a lot better technology. Those were different times. In fact, if Romans had to fight the Mongolians hordes, they would have been defeated too.

Romans were a superior force in a world that fought on foot. They have no chance in other time periods, at least they modernized... But then they wouldn't be the Roman army we know.

DIVUS IVLIVS

*sigh*

Again, you ignore blatently what I have been saying.

Try and unbend enough to get your head around the fact that technology is not the be-all end-all of this argument , or even particularly important to it.

You want some specific focus? Fine - here's some specific focus.

The question is which military force was superior: Roman Legions of the Late Republic or the Spanish Armies of the 17th Century.

The answer as anyone who has ever tripped over a crack in the pavement and fallen face-first into a history book left lying around will be able to tell you is the Romans, and indeed many military forces besides of the Ancient World.

Military Organization is a fine art that goes far beyond technology, and while some appreciation of it was starting to seep back into European Military Know-how in the aftermath of the Middle Ages, not nearly enough to so much as lift a finger to the Romans. Case Closed.

Add Logistical Capabilities etc into the mix and your argument is pounded into dust so fine it all but disappears.

The armies of the 17th Century in Europe, and the Spanish ones were no exception, were a rabble that often disintergrated without expert management, that moved at a veritable snail's pace, and numerically were often rather pathetic compared to what the great empires of the Ancient World could swing.

If a Roman force of Caesar's period were to come into contact with a Spanish force of the period you argue for there wouldn't even need to be a battle. The Roman force could literally run rings around the Spaniards, who have no hope whatsoever of matching the ability of the Romans to force-march, and it would not take much to see that Spaniards disintegrate.

And if it did come to a battle then I would put that the Romans can still take it. Your entire argument revolves around technology, and this effectively revolves around gunpowder weapons, which frankly would not have been of much use. Muskets of this era were so innaccurate as to be laughable - some historians have quite seriosuly suggested that they did more damage being used as clubs at close range than in firing. It is a similar story for cannon of the time. Once the Romans get into close range they would unleash a deadly hail of Pila that alone would probably see the Spanish break apart, and once the Romans close in to fight hand-to-hand it is all over. If the Spanish have managed to achieve an ever-so-slightly better quality in metallurgy it is not going to save them - the Roman steel is quite sufficient to hold up and the deadly tactics of the gladius-wielding Cohort Legion will cut the Spaniards to ribbons. Spanish Cavalry can only do so much when Romans (who were specially trained in this technique) start diving underneath them to stab at their bellies, as well as other responses to cavalry that proved quite successful.

Only later a century or so on does technology advance sufficiently that it will swing the battle, and not until the 1800s is their military organization to match that of Rome.

As said above, case closed.

On the contrary - I made an observation. An observation that you are despertaely focussing solely on the obsolete tack of technology precisely because you have nothing, pure and simple, outside of this to argue with.

I advise again (not sure what time it is - I've lost count) - read some more history books before you continue with these ridiculous posts of yours.

DIVUS IVLIVS

And I do believe that this thread has been hopelessly dereailed. Hopefully once we can get over pinguin's ranting we can get back to the original discussed topic of the Top 100 Military Commanders in History, which it seems has been agreed mostly due to lack of provided evidence does not include Lautaro.