Ranking Every* General in the History of Warfare
*Almost every
When Africanus asked who, in Hannibal’s opinion, was the greatest general, Hannibal named Alexander… as to whom he would rank second, Hannibal selected Pyrrhus… asking whom Hannibal considered third, he named himself without hesitation. Then Scipio broke into a laugh and said, “What would you say if you had defeated me?”
— Livy
Like Hannibal, I wanted to rank powerful leaders in the history of warfare. Unlike Hannibal, I sought to use data to determine a general’s abilities, rather than specific accounts of generals’ achievements. The result is a system for ranking every prominent commander in military history.The Method
Inspired by baseball sabermetrics, I opted to use a system of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). WAR is often used as an estimate of a baseball player’s contributions to his team. It calculates the total wins added (or subtracted) by the player compared to a replacement-level player. For example, a baseball player with 5 WAR contributed 5 additional wins to his team, compared to the average contributions of a high-level minor league player. WAR is far from perfect, but provides a way to compare players based on one statistic.
I adopted WAR to estimate a given military tactician’s contributions beyond or below an average general. My model, which I explain below, provides an estimate for the performance of an average general in any given circumstances. I can then evaluate a general’s quality based on how much they exceeded or fell short of a replacement general in the same circumstances (assuming a replacement general would perform at an average level). In other words, I would find the generals’ WAR, in war.