Tier List of Conquerors
Holy Trinity (In descending order):
Alexander III of Macedon
Napoleon Bonaparte
Gaius Julius Caesar
Immortal Tier (In descending order):
Hannibal Barca
Genghis Khan
Scipio Africanus
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Half-Divine Tier:
Philip II of Macedon
Duke of Wellington
Erwin Rommel
Isoroku Yamamoto
Feel free to add more, those are just quick ones off the top of my head.
My man, Genghis Khan kicks the tar out everyone in that holy trinity. He literally killed ~10% of the world's population, changed the carbon footprint of the entire human race, and something like .5-1% of the entire male population today is related to him. It's not even a contest if we're comparing global impact relative to their time period. I would kick Julias off that list and put G-man at the top, the rest I can agree closely enough with but not having him at #1 is blasphemy.
Genghis Khan didn't beat relatively stronger empires than Alexander or Napoleon. Besides, he wasn't a great statesman (Mongolia was a horde of warriors, not a civilization), while the likes of Alexander and Caesar were acute statesmen and diplomats as well.
Binding together a bunch of disparate tribes into a cohesive fighting machine that could cross vast distances without losing political cohesion is arguably a greater feat of statesmanship than any of the other folks on this list, so you'd have to put Genghis Khan at the top of the list.
Julius Caesar was assassinated because of his inability to adequately manage the expectations of the Roman senatorial class. Alexander's empire shattered immediately upon his death because of his inability to craft a coherent, workable plan for the succession. So while both carved out enormous conquests and hardly (if ever) lost a battle, you can make a case that as politicians they fell on their face when it mattered most.
Half the rest of the list falls flat because they didn't, in the end, actually conquer anything. Napoleon's conquests were undone in his lifetime. Yamamoto may have been a brilliant tactician, but he died even as the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was beginning to crack apart. Rommel was driven out of North Africa. Hannibal couldn't manage to force Rome to it's knees despite winning two or three of the most lopsided battles of all time. Some of these guys are the greatest tacticians of all time, but couldn't manage to weld a cohesive empire together within their own lifetimes. Yes, in hindsight, their defeat may have been more or less pre-ordained (Hannibal, Yamamoto) by forces beyond their control, but that's part of the gig.
Better examples of conquerors who left behind a cohesive, long-lasting polity might be the Mughal emperors Babur or Akbar. Or Chandragupta Maurya, for another from the Indian subcontinent. Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. Saladin and the Ayyubids. Ptolemy I in Egypt. Or to go back even further, Sargon of Akkad. Narmer, the founder of the First Dynasty of the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt.
This is a list of conquerors, not politicians. The man literally started from nothing and built an army that changed the face of humanity. No one else on that entire list is even remotely comparable in terms of sheer "conquering" that went on. Everyone in that top 3 started out as royalty/near royalty or in an already established military that they proceeded to build up over time. Not even close.
Read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and get back to us
He didn’t create a civilisation ? The guy literally kickstarted global commerce, cultural/scientific exchanges and religious freedom and created the largest empire the world has ever seen. Napoleon is kind of a joke in comparison.
Alexander was a horrendous statesman.
Alexander idolized Cyrus the Great and realized Achaemenid Persian culture was superior to his own.
So he desperately tried to integrate the cultures, failed, and within 100 years the Parthians trashed his Seleucid empire and retook Persia
Cyrus the Great would smash Genghis Khan.
So I take it you're Persian...
More like Cyrus the Gay
Mongol invasions killed 1/4 of the world population btw. Mostly Muslims and Chinese. Typical example of white supremacy in action.
Higher ratio than WW2 (1/5).
The part about descendancy seems to be more a legend than actual true. It's based on the reasoning that a significant part of the human population seems to have a common ancestor from around the time of the Mongol invasions, which leads to the obvious conclusion. However genetic studies don't back it up. If I remember correctly, the genetics of the ''common ancestor'' don't match the ones of those who can realistically claim to be direct descendants of Temujin.
Mongols idolized Persian culture once they got to Persia. Tells you how pathetic the Mongols really were.
Also your description is inaccurate. Many Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians were slaughtered under Genghis Khan.
"Muslims" is not a race, Chinese is.
Mongols weren't white... But what I'm getting from what you've said is that the Mongols were super based?
Genghis Khan started from scratch and still manage to get to the top while Alexander inherited an army from his father, in turn the heir of powerful kings.
Even though Alexander was a good student of mine, Genghis Khan deserves the first place.
Genghis Khan used an inflexible tactic that faltered against the Polish keeps and professional forces, Alexander utterly bested Egypt and Persia.
You might want to check your dates, buddy. Legnica and Mohi were in 1241 and Genghis Khan died in 1227. If you want to blame him for any loss in Europe, I think in all fairness you have to agree that anyone badass enough to be actively campaigning 14 years after their death is a literal "god tier" general. Moreover, while it seems unlikely that Mongol tactics would have worked well in heavily fortified Europe, the fact remains that it's most probable that the Mongols withdrew for internal, political, reasons than because they were defeated in battle or proved unable to adapt to a more siege-centric style of warfare.
Was reading Genghis Khan’s biography last year and it’s fascinating. One of the most capable leaders ever
Love how this thread is way more thoughtful than any bank/school/fund tier list
Amazing how even a near-illiterate idiot can spark an interesting discussion! Guess trolls are good for something, occasionally...
Yes, well, it's actually discussing important things related to culture.
Ashoka,Atilla
Genghis Khan - Subatai - Atilla - Timur - Alexander - Cyrus - Aurelian - Tariq
Shout out to Heraclius too. One of ERE greatest leaders and history just through a deus ex machina in the form of the Arab invasions.
Subutai has to be one of the greatest military tacticians in history.
I'm actually not sure I agree. First off, the Arab invasions weren't a deus ex machina. Tribal confederations were continually pushing at the borders of both the Eastern Empire and Sassanid Persia. It's just that decades of intensive warfare had essentially bankrupted both states, making them easy prey for invasion. Just the same as the earlier breakdown in central authority and decades of civil war made Rome open to invasion by the Goths.
Second, it's debatable whether he's even one of the better Byzantine commanders. Belisarius, obviously, but also Nikephoros Phocas and John Tzismiskes have a decent claim to more success in the face of worse odds.
George Bush
What did he conquer, apart from two buildings in New York?
The heart and soul of the nation, God bless with true!
Definitely missing Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro. The odds that these two had to overcome were insurmountable, they were able to use alliances, backstabbing, and of course diseases to bring down empires with just a few hundred guys. Like real life hollywood action heros. And their conquests remained part of Spain for around 300 years.
Rare based Drumpfy post?! Cortes and Pizarro are beyond goated, their balls created their own gravity wells from sheer massiveness.
This dude has been arguing extensively that the conquering emperor of the largest contiguous land empire in human history doesn't belong in the "holy trinity" - lol.
True, but Central Asia is less valuable than the empires that made up the rest of the "holy trinity" despite being larger. You could make the argument that Genghis started from less, which is true though.
Central Asia is less valuable lol.
I mean, what should matter is the revenue being produced by that land. Owning all of Siberia, which is 5,100,000 square miles according to Wikipedia, means controlling ~25% more land than China (modern China), but.... I doubt many rulers would prefer the extra 1.4mm square miles to having less land but more people (and therefore money and power). So yeah, Genghis Khan conquered a vast amount of territory, but I don't think that's the important part. Managing to take vary his tactics enough that he was defeating Central Asian empires or Chinese kingdoms or European feudal states is way more impressive than just "XXX number of miles conquered."
If conquering a single city means taking control over hundreds of thousands of square miles of effectively uninhabited steppe, that's great - but it's less impressive than fighting one's way through a densely urbanized, densely fortified area like the Near East. Which the Mongols also did, of course. Just as a comparison.
Pretty sure the Roman Empire's GDP (as % of global GDP) was 2-3x the Golden Horde's, and its population was the same despite the global population skyrocketing in the 1000 years between the two.
Also the British Empire was the largest by landmass.
I said contiguous. Genghis is a no brainer as a top 3 conqueror.
Suleiman the Magnificent definitely deserves to be up there
Not sure if Erwin Rommel's achievements are on the level of "conqueror" (or are even close to it)
Needed some Third Reich representation and Adolf wasn't really a general (and I would ruin my SB:MS ratio if I listed him).
No we didn't. They briefly held whatever they conquered and lost. Not on par with any of these generals/emperors who established lasting empires. The final legacy of the Nazis is losing.
Not... really. I'd say the Kaiserreich is far more deserving of representation. They were way more competent. See: Moltke the Elder, Von Roon, Schlieffen, etc.
Emperor Palpatine did a halfway decent job iirc.
Nah I'd say it was really the likes of Director Krennic or Grand Moff Tarkin who did the heavy lifting
ye but my guy could shoot lightning from his fingertips
pretty prestige if u ask me
I would add Tang Taizong to the top of the Immortal Tier and Han Wudi to the bottom of the Immortal Tier. Taizong was able to establish and expand his empire without sacrificing too much domestic population and economy. Wudi was able to expand into regions never discovered before but the cost was way to high and it took too long.
Genghis Khan really should have his own tier.
Thanos pretty easily acquired stones which let him snap and wipe out half of humanity... so think the winner is clear.
But I echo the above - easily Genghis. That guy rallied ppl together who had no business rallying together and took over the most land mass we've ever seen.
Not even the most landmass (British Empire), plus most of the land was desolate. Genghis Khan's empire had a tiny % of the global population AND GDP, it was only large because nobody else wanted the steppes and tundras he claimed.
Genghis Khan didn't conquer Song China but his sons and grandsons did. With the population and GDP of then China, the entire Mongol empire certainly did have a larger GDP and population than any of the guys above.
Yet his descendants then took over India and Persia.
This is all very interesting. Any good book recs from you knowledgeable people to learn more about this kind of stuff?
Hannibal was a genius general but not really a great conqueror. He didn't really conquer that much. He mostly tried to end the league between Rome and the Italian cities and that failed.
The Duke of Wellington wasn't a great conqueror either. He's mostly famous for winning at Waterloo because that was Napoleon's last battle, but Wellington's actual conquests were... in India.
Pyrrhus briefly conquered Macedonia and parts of Southern Italy but but quickly lost all of them. Not that impressive in terms of conquests either.
Rommel again was a great general, not a conqueror.
Philip of Macedon conquered Greek cities and that's about it, although they were the peak of military might at the time.
On top of my mind, Charlemagne, Saladin, Cyrus, Tamerlane all conquered far more than many names on the list despite being less brilliant militarily (except Tamerlane).
You mean stomping around the Italian peninsula for 15 years while Carthage did fuck all to help (and his brother who was supposed to reinforce him fucked up big time) and wiping out 40% of the Roman Republic's male population isn't impressive?
It is impressive but he didn't create an empire not conquered new lands on his own, so not a great conqueror.
Dude, effective conquest is tactics + logistics + strategy. The guy's plan was faulty from the start. Sure he was a great tactician but why would he instigate a fight with Rome of his own accord while sitting in Spain ruling over his own fiefdom? If he was really a great general, he wouldn't have set off on his merry adventure with his band of Barca loyalists, some elephants, and Gallic stragglers; he would've ensured the proper supply lines existed and that Carthage was willing to bankroll his escapades. He would've known that the same polity that told Xanthippus to fuck off after he showed them he could beat the Romans in the first Punic war would be extremely wary of supporting a semi-rogue general who was an extremely adept tactician and had dreams of empire. Like literally what if his entire army was buried in a fucking avalanche while crossing the alps?
Also, why tf didn't he go for Rome after Cannae?
I believe that the Romans would've won even if Scipio Africanus never existed, because you guys are forgetting about a certain someone called Fabius the Delayer. He had figured out Hannibal's shtick and new that the way to beat him is attrition. The Romans initially opposed the guy but after incidents like Cannae were coming around.
Some Romans that actually belong on your list would be the afore-mentioned Fabius, Agrippa, Germanicus, Trajan, and Aurelian, to name a few.
Secondly, I don't get why you believe the Third Reich deserves a mention. If you wanted to include some Germans on your list, there's plenty of better alternatives. Blucher, Frederick William "the great elector", Frederick II and Moltke the Elder. The last two actually held on to their conquests, which is a pretty big fucking accomplishment on a list where most people's conquests evaporated shortly after their lives if not during their lives. Freddy randomly decided that fuck it, he likes Silesia, he wants Silesia, and God Damn it he's going to go and fucking get Silesia. Despite war after war declared with the intent of retaking Silesia, the guy held on to, you guessed it, Silesia. You could argue that the so called Miracle of the house of Brandenburg played a part and he was screwed by the end, but tbh a lot of these "conquerors" had an insane amount of things go right for them that could very well have gone horribly wrong. So what if the new Tsar is a complete simp for Prussia? Victory is victory. Moltke the Elder on the other hand, completely annihilated France in 1871, fair and square. The guy was a tactician, strategist, and logistician all rolled into one.
I don't think your list includes Cyrus the great either, who has a lot going for him in terms of establishing a lasting empire from a backwoods kingdom in Media and conquered Mesopotamia, the pre-eminent military power of the time.
Yep. Kind of out of his control, but "conqueror" kind of requires some sort of lasting territorial gains.
To be fair to Wellington, he also won the Peninsular War. That ain't nothing. He had a career of success against well-matched opponents, and won way more often than he lost. That's worth something - and his gains were permanent, unlike generals like Napoleon.
Both of them may be way overrated. Pyrrhus did nothing lasting - a lot of his reputation is based on contemporary opinion. As I mentioned downthread.... Rommel's admirers have their own reasons for pimping his reputation as well.
To go back a bit further - Thutmose III, or Chandragupta Maurya a bit later, were both highly successful conqueror-rulers. But I agree with the other names here.
I think re-conquest should be included here lol, because Aurelian definitely deserves a mention. There's literally no fault you could find with the Restitutor Orbis. Heraclius was pretty cool as well, as far as his record against the Sassanids is concerned. Since the guy included Rommel who wasn't really a "conqueror" but a general, we'd be remiss not to mention Fabius the Delayer (who I believe could've defeated Hannibal on his own), Agrippa, and Germanicus. Trajan and Majorian are also worthwhile mentions. Basil II of the Macedonian dynasty also hasn't been mentioned, the guy was absolutely brutal.
Moltke the Elder literally curbstomped France, and Frederick II held his own against 3 empires.
I think we are missing one VERY important man.
Dwight D. Eisenhower. - The man led the invasion of Europe. With the British all but conquered, Montgomery was his second, he led the invasion of North Africa, and then France, The Netherlands, Germany, and then the rest of occupied Europe. He did this all in less than 2-years.
We then gave all those countries back to their people.
Alexander the Great took 13-years to do his feat.
Yeah, but to be fair, Eisenhower was for the most part up against depleted German fighting units - the Germans were a shell of their early war glory after the meat grinder on the Eastern Front.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how the Wehrmacht were the finest fighting force to grace Europe since the British Empire's infantry regulars and Rome's legions?
The Third Reich was taking Europe by storm on such a terrifying scale unseen since the Napoleanic era.
Can't see how Rommel deserves to be on this list. He was a decent tactician / field commander but not the god of Panzer warfare that post-WW2 western propaganda have made him out to be. The myth of Rommel was mostly born out of British embarrassment and their desire to shift the blame for their early losses in Africa to a brilliant enemy commander, rather than their own incompetence. He was also a very mediocre strategist / field marshal and his quick rise through the Wehrmacht had more to do with his personal friendship with Hitler and Hitler's desire to spite the OKW rather than any great strategic thinking.
Also Trajan was arguably a better conqueror than Caesar.
Trajan inherited an empire during Pax Romana, while Julius had essentially a ragtag Republic (relative to the grandeur and splendor of Trajan's time).
Also the recent "British only worship Rommel as a god to cover up their own incompetence" was a recent retcon of Allied intelligence. Instead of saying "they were gods, but yet we barely defeated them", they did a 180 and decided to go with the story "they were overrated and were never a threat, Rule Britannia, America #1, etc"
Can't forget about financial conquerors.
Can I get a shoutout for my boy Bill Browder? He went from being born on the south side of Chicago to conquering the Russian equity market during the 90s and going head to head with Putin. Talk about a fearless OG.
Ken Griffith might need an honorable mention as well. He literally conquered the US legal system / SEC with Citadel's Robinhood influence.
Lastly, the absolute GOAT Jeff Skilling himself. He literally redefined SEC reporting and finessed his way into reporting forecasted revenue as actuals. Dont even get me started on his manipulation of the California energy market.
Mad respect for Browder, just for the fact he's still alive after all he's done.
I have to give it to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil, the granddaddy of BP, Exxon and Chevron, and that description doesn't even do him justice.
Excellent call out and addition to this massive list. Rockefeller is 1 in ~20 bn. We may never see his like again.
Nah, Browder's a little bitch. He was never an enemy of Putin when he operated his hedge fund but rather a loyal Putinista, perfectly fine when Putin was putting other oligarchs in Uranium mines, but of course when it was his turn, all of a sudden he became a human rights activist.
https://www.economist.com/business/2006/03/23/an-enemy-of-the-people
You're right except for Bill Browder, his dad was a famous mathematician. Doesn't feel like he really built from the bottom up
Jim Simmons may be a financial conqueror as well. Not quite the broader impact of the others mentioned but in the Quant field he and his firm dominate.
Christopher Columbus, Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortés
Aegon the Conqueror - it's in his name.
In all seriousness, as has been stated ad nauseum above, Genghis deserves his own tier. A few other people have mentioned Timur and Cyrus who also belong in high tiers.
Napoleon literally solos every other general combined in pure strategy, I placed Alexander above him because Alexander was an exalted warrior, in addition to being a tier 1 strategist.
Based on AOE simulations?
Duke of Wellington achieved the impossible. Took down Napoleon - but being labeled a Conqueror ?
Also If we are talking battlefield achievements where is Patton ?
Holy fuck this thread is giving me nightmare flashbacks to when I earned a 1 on AP World History. How do you all know this shit?
Just like general history with a focus on historical warfare. War strategy games like the Total War series are fun too. Military history is generally badass so it's fun to read about imo.
I was formally educated in history-esque stuff at Oxford (PPE) and I'm in politics, so it figures that I know this stuff.
Baliol has the best Classics program at Oxford.
In the US, Princeton, Harvard, USC, Yale and Columbia are known to be quite good.
Been seeing a lot of comments that are placing the Mongols on a pedestal. Let me remind you all that Napoleon and Alexander never lost a single battle and each respectively defeated equally powerful and well armed empires (in some cases, even more powerful and advanced) with inferior numbers, training and technology. They both stomped a massive, diverse lineup of empires, while the Mongols essentially said to everybody it conquered: "No horses? LOL too bad, we're going to shoot arrows while riding away, try to catch us without horses. Oh by the way, since your empire doesn't have hills, marshes or mountains, we're going to ride at mach 4 around your villages burning them before you horseless plebs in heavy armor can catch up."
The problem with Genghis is he didn't curb stomp northern China hard enough so then they backstabbed him and he died trying to conquer them again. Due to his reliance on horse archers he didn't really know how to pull off big sieges.
The later Mongols, at their peak would use elite soldiers, early artillery, siege engines, and anything else from the many countries that paid tributes to them. At that point they were un fucking stoppable.
Haha unstoppable like being defeated in East Europe by a ragtag group of second-rate empires and military orders?
Alexander got poisoned by his Persian wife Roxanna.
What a simp.
Thought he died of malaria, not a historian so excuse me if im wrong
Not gonna lie, kinda weird vibes having two Axis generals featured. A list of the world's greatest military conquerors needed someone from both WW2 Japan and Germany? And you've taken an odd tone about Italy not staying fiercely loyal to the Nazis. If Rommel or Yamamoto make the list, why not any of the generals that actually won the war?
Well the Axis were always the underdog who won an astonishing number of battles through tactics and vision, not just "hurr durr i have factories so far away or across a channel that you cant control because we've been sinking money into our navy since the dark ages, so you cant bomb them" or "hurr durr i can survive losing 30% of my male population" like the Allied did.
Yeah, that's the kind of odd vibes I'm talking about. A weird reverence for the Nazis and Imperial Japan. The Axis were the aggressors, they picked the fights and lost. If their enemies used hurr durr tactics and won, that hardly qualifies them as the greatest conquerors ever. Feels like you're insisting on including them out of a weird personal preference.
The Soviets lost 30% of their male population because the Nazis actively engaged in genocide along the Eastern front...
Hitler
He was more of a statesman than a general/conqueror (as those two became mutually exclusive past a certain point in history), but performed admirably in multiple fronts for an extended period of time nonetheless. But this tier list is focused on individual's abilities to fight wars and win battles, not administrate, reform and develop.
Better artist than he was "conqueror" frankly.
Have to point out the degree of negativity towards "conquering" / "colonialism" in this thread. It's ridiculous - real colonialism has never been tried. Colonialist theory is predicated on the harmonious union of different cultures and mutual economic benefit. The Brits, Romans, Greeks, et. al do not represent colonialism.
Where is the hate against conquest/colonialism? I think everybody on here respects strength and adheres to "might makes right", because they're all well schooled members of the upper echelon of society.
Yes, well you're a 15 year old fetishizing Napoleon, so no wonder you think "might makes right". The history of the world, in fact the history of the Napoleonic Wars, give the lie to that.
Where is my man Attila the Hun? He’s surely BB or fairly close at elite MM?
He's up there in the MM territory for sure. Not elite boutique or BB status.
Think Harris Williams, Piper Sandler or William Blair.
Learned a lot about history on this thread -- thanks Ozymandia !
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