Ciao Ilpars, good to see that a Board has finally been dedicated to Military History! Only problem right now: very hard to find. And also it may have been too sliced off. I would have dividing it into, say, Modern Wars, WW2, WW1, European Warfare (Renaissance to WW1), American Wars (including ACW and ARW), Asian Warfare, Middle Ages and Antiquity. And that's it. Now, haven't you forgotten in the list Suchet (but was he Marshall, btw?) who was the only one to do well in Spain? Densoflex

Suchet is the 6th in my list. It was hard for me to decide between him and Massena for the 5th place though.

I don't know much about the Napoleonic Marshalls but what about Ney? Where do you place him?

At the bottom of the list. He cost Napoleon what little chance he had of winning at Waterloo.

Is the criterion how good they were as Marechals (independent commanders)? You could make an argument for Murat or Berthier, who were awful as independent commanders, but wonderful as subordinate commanders.

It was a shame Gen Louis Desaix died at Marengo in 1800; he showed great potential and would have been a brilliant Marshall (had he only lived for the later handout of titles).

Don't be too rough on Ney. Well before Waterloo Ney saved NAppy 's butt plenty of times, particularly in Russia. The Brezhizna (sp) crossing is but one example. And that was with drastically reduced forces...

Ney was the best divisional commander in the French army. But he was completely lost in higher commands. His blunders were numereous from Ulm campaign at 1805, to his last ones at Waterloo. All off his successes were happened when he commanded a divisional sized force such as his rearguard duty during retreat from Moskawa.