The “role model” thread made me think of this.
If you wanted to take over the world, which one of these guys would you hire?
edit - you can also suggest others. Hitler and Napoleon come to mind.
Napoleon for sure (see my profile picture). The dude turfed monarchs and brought rule of law to Europe. Sure, he was brutal at times, but he is the only guy you mention that has a positive lasting legacy.
I thought that this was a Celebrity Deathmatch thread.
I’d go with the guy who tamed and rode Bucephalus.
My vote is for Genghis Khan…the dude nearly ruled over nearly22% of the earth once upon a time…
I agree with only your last three words…a great military leader no doubt !
Hitler was not a great military leader, he was a great orator and politician (if by “great” you mean really effective at doing horrible things). Militarily he was an idiot. Germany could have won or at least stayed in it a lot longer if he avoided several key blunders.
Not sure you’re going to find anyone better than G.K.
Btw I was refering to Napoleon, in my earlier post, in reply to geo
I would take Alexander the Great. He knew how to conquer real, fortified cities (Tyre comes to mind). And, he lived over 1000 years before Genhis Khan. Genghis Khan was able to take Xi’an (a walled city) principally because China’s Jin emperor was crappy and foolishly didn’t lend a hand.
Here’s an interesting alternate history question. If Germany had the upper hand after the US developed nukes, would the US nuke Germany? I mean, the fire bombing in Dresden was basically as destructive, but imagine is a nuke being dropped on Europe as well as Japan was part of our historical lexicon. If Germany had been able ot hold on long enough to develop nukes…well, given the rationality of that regime it could have been the end of 99% of humanity.
I doubt it. As much as the US is called a melting pot, the vast majority of Americans still identify with their European roots and would have viewed nuking Germany much differently than they viewed nuking Japan. The Japanese also directly attacked us, so there was a certain revenge factor.
I think it’s clear the US would have nuked Germany. I think we would have done anything in our control to stop the Axis, and it would have been the right choice regardless of the outcome unless maybe Germany had nukes as well. My scenario was more along the lines of Germany not dropping the ball on the Messerschmitt ME 262 (Hitler’s fault, among others), which would have allowed them to dominate the remaining hold outs in Europe much faster. England would have certainly fallen if Germany had total air superiority. If they could have avoided attacking Russia (a big if) then Germany could have taken the fight to the US to support Japan. The US would have still been very tough to stop but it would have ata least gone on for much longer.
alexander cuz i’ve seen the alexander movie. never heard of any genghis khan movie. that said they should make a napoleon movie, i’ve seen some of the history channle stuff on him and its really inspiring stuff. Napoleon > all.
Alexander
GK for sure. He practically invented and certainly perfected (for his time) the use of mounted troops.
But let’s forget about number of victories and land area conquered. GK has approximately 16 million living descendents today. No bigger BSD in the history of the world.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
No bigger BSD than Khan, dude apparently has 16 million living descendents.
Special mention to Napolean for his foresight though, rumor has it, back in the day when China was still a false market for European goods he pointed at her on the map and said ‘Let China sleep, when she awakens she will shake the world’.
EDIT : Beat me to it.
^Huh, so this is the one time in 2015 we’ll agree on something. Virtual hug, buddy.
THIS. People have this idea of AH as some skilled military and political administrator, but reality is he was more like a German Idi Amin or Gaddafi.
I thought we were talking about who we’d hire today to conquer the world. I’m not hiring a barbaric rapist that specialised in elephant fighting. The diplomatic, economic and other soft power skills of Napoleon make him a better option than GK hands down. Now if I was looking for a field marshall, maybe then I’d hire GK.
You have a very biased view against GK. GK was actually a very progessive ruler. Whatever land he controlled he instituted religious freedom, abolished torture, encouraged trade, and created the first international postal system. I knew all those facts except the last one already. Link below for additional details. Bottom line, getting conquered by GK was, in many cases, a good thing (provided you survived).
And they rode horses, not elephants.