Who are the greatest British commanders?

In our ranking the top five are Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Bernard Montgomery, Henry V and Robert the Bruce. Francis Drake, Oliver Cromwell, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, the Duke of Marlborough, Edward the Black Prince, Hugh Dowding, Douglas Haig, Robert Clive and James Wolfe complete the fifteen.

The Duke of Wellington, with the Prussians under Blücher, defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815; at sea, Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805 had already ended Napoleon's hopes of invading Britain.

Who won the Battle of Agincourt?

Henry V of England, on 25 October 1415. His army, cut by fighting and dysentery to 6,000 or 7,000 men by World History Encyclopedia's count, beat a larger French army that attacked over muddy, freshly plowed fields into his archers; estimates of the French run from about 12,000 to 36,000.

Are English and British commanders the same?

Not exactly. This list counts the commanders of England and of Scotland before the union of 1707 and of Great Britain after it, so Robert the Bruce, who won Scotland's independence from England at Bannockburn, stands beside English kings such as Henry V. William the Conqueror was a Norman duke who took the English crown in 1066; he is here for the English armies he led as king.

Where can I read about their battles?

Each entry links to the full story where we have one, and our guide to the greatest battles in British history ranks the battles themselves, from Hastings and Bannockburn to Trafalgar, Waterloo and the Battle of Britain.

The Greatest British Commanders

Q: Who was Britain's greatest general?

In our ranking, the Duke of Wellington, who beat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815; only the admiral Nelson, with the same 48 points, stands above him. In the National Army Museum's 2011 vote for Britain's greatest general the audience could not choose between Wellington and William Slim and named both.

At a glance
Rank	Commander	Lived	Greatest victory	Record
1	Horatio Nelson	1758 to 1805	Trafalgar, 1805	Nile, Copenhagen, Trafalgar; repulsed at Tenerife
2	Duke of Wellington	1769 to 1852	Waterloo, 1815	Never lost a major battle; failed at Burgos
3	Bernard Montgomery	1887 to 1976	El Alamein, 1942	Alamein, Normandy; Market Garden failed
4	Henry V	about 1386 to 1422	Agincourt, 1415	Agincourt, conquest of Normandy; no field defeat
5	Robert the Bruce	1274 to 1329	Bannockburn, 1314	Loudoun Hill, Bannockburn; beaten at Methven
6	Francis Drake	about 1540 to 1596	The Armada, 1588 (vice-admiral)	Cádiz, Armada; failed at Lisbon, San Juan, Panama
7	Oliver Cromwell	1599 to 1658	Dunbar, 1650	Preston, Dunbar, Worcester; never beaten in command
8	William the Conqueror	about 1028 to 1087	Hastings, 1066	Varaville, Hastings; beaten at Dol and Gerberoy
9	Richard the Lionheart	1157 to 1199	Arsuf, 1191	Acre, Arsuf, Jaffa; never took Jerusalem
10	Duke of Marlborough	1650 to 1722	Blenheim, 1704	Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet won
11	Edward the Black Prince	1330 to 1376	Poitiers, 1356	Crécy, Poitiers, Nájera; no defeat
12	Hugh Dowding	1882 to 1970	Battle of Britain, 1940	Won his one campaign; removed in 1940
13	Douglas Haig	1861 to 1928	Hundred Days, 1918	Somme and Passchendaele costly; won in 1918
14	Robert Clive	1725 to 1774	Plassey, 1757	Arcot and Plassey; one repulse at Calcutta
15	James Wolfe	1727 to 1759	Quebec, 1759	Louisbourg and Quebec; repulsed at Beauport

Quick answer

Who was the greatest British commander?

Horatio Nelson is the greatest British commander in our ranking: he won the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar, and Trafalgar gave Britain a century of naval supremacy. The Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, has the same 48 points and is second only as the younger man, followed by Bernard Montgomery, Henry V and Robert the Bruce.

For nine centuries England, Scotland and then Great Britain fought their wars under kings, generals and admirals. This list ranks the fifteen who did most on land and at sea between 1066 and World War II, from William the Conqueror at Hastings to Montgomery at El Alamein, and it includes Scots such as Robert the Bruce, who won his battles against the English. Kings count only for the battles they led in person, and the battles themselves are ranked in our guide to the greatest battles in British history. The fifteen are ranked by score for recognition, battlefield record, consequence, legacy and certainty, not by date; see how we chose them.¹

1 Horatio Nelson, 1758 to 1805

Lived: 1758 to 1805; killed at Trafalgar²
Served: Royal Navy, 1770 to 1805
Greatest victory: Trafalgar, 1805: 27 British ships against 33 French and Spanish
Record: Won the Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801) and Trafalgar (1805); repulsed at Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797)
Legacy: Trafalgar ended Napoleon’s hopes of invading Britain and began a century of British naval supremacy

Horatio Nelson was born in 1758 at the rectory of Burnham Thorpe and entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman in November 1770. At Cape St Vincent, on 14 February 1797, he captured two Spanish ships, the San José and the San Nicolás; that July his night attack on Santa Cruz de Tenerife was beaten off, and a Spanish shot cost him his right arm.³

At the Nile, on 1 August 1798, his 13 ships of the line attacked 13 French ones at anchor in Aboukir Bay. Only two French ships of the line escaped, and the flagship L’Orient blew up. At Copenhagen, on 2 April 1801, he fought on against a signal to break off, then used diplomacy, threat and bluff to win an armistice from the Danes. Myth vs fact: the telescope put to his blind eye is, in the word of Royal Museums Greenwich, only alleged.⁴

At Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805, his 27 ships broke through the line of 33 French and Spanish, took 17 ships and set another ablaze, for 449 British sailors killed. A bullet fired from the rigging of the French Redoutable struck Nelson at about 1.15 pm, and he died at 4.30. The battle ended Napoleon’s hopes of invading Britain and began a century of British naval supremacy.⁵

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence, legacy and certainty: no British commander is better known, and Trafalgar settled who ruled the sea for a century. The repulse at Santa Cruz de Tenerife holds his battlefield record to 4. He ties Wellington on 48 points, level with him on recognition and consequence, and is No. 1 as the older man.

Read the full story of Horatio Nelson ›

Portrait of Nelson in admiral's uniform and bicorne hat with orders and medals — Horatio Nelson, painted by Lemuel Francis Abbott in 1799. Public domain

2 Duke of Wellington, 1769 to 1852

Lived: 1769 to 1852⁶
Served: British Army in India, Portugal and Spain, and the Waterloo campaign; later prime minister
Greatest victory: Waterloo, 1815: 68,000 men, with 48,000 Prussians arriving, against Napoleon’s 72,000⁷
Record: Won Assaye (1803), Salamanca (1812), Vitoria (1813) and Waterloo (1815); failed at the siege of Burgos (1812)
Legacy: Ended Napoleon’s rule; prime minister 1828 to 1830 and in 1834⁸

Arthur Wellesley was born in Dublin in 1769 into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family and learned his trade in India. At Assaye, on 23 September 1803, he won his first major victory. Sent to Portugal in 1808, he beat the French at Vimeiro, checking their columns with the reverse slope defense that became his trademark.⁹

His victory at Salamanca on 22 July 1812 showed that he could also maneuver and attack in the open field, though his failure to take Burgos that autumn forced him back into Portugal. At Vitoria, on 21 June 1813, he beat a French army of about 65,000 under King Joseph and chased it all the way to the Pyrenees. Then came Waterloo. On 18 June 1815 his 68,000 men held their ridge against Napoleon’s 72,000 until 48,000 Prussians under Blücher came up; Napoleon lost nearly 40,000 men killed, wounded or captured, abdicated and spent the rest of his life on St Helena.¹⁰

Myth vs fact: that he never lost a battle is, as Stephen Roberts writes in The Past, an oft-repeated myth. As a young officer he shared the retreat after Boxtel in 1794, and Burgos ended in retreat; the fair claim is that he never lost a major battle.¹¹

Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, battlefield record, consequence and certainty: he is the name most often given for Britain’s greatest general, and in the National Army Museum’s 2011 vote he shared first place with William Slim. He beat Napoleon himself, though Waterloo was won with Blücher. Legacy is 4, a point below Nelson; level with him on 48 points, recognition and consequence, he comes second only as the younger man.¹²

Read the full story of the Duke of Wellington ›

3 Bernard Montgomery, 1887 to 1976

Lived: 1887 to 1976¹³
Served: British Army from 1908; Eighth Army, 1942 to 1943; Allied ground forces in Normandy, 1944; British and Canadian armies in north-west Europe, 1944 to 1945
Greatest victory: El Alamein, 1942: over 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks against 116,000 Germans and Italians¹⁴
Record: Won Alam Halfa and El Alamein (1942) and the Normandy landings (1944); Market Garden failed at Arnhem (1944)
Legacy: Accepted the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath, May 1945

Bernard Montgomery was born in Kennington, London, in 1887 and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908. Shot through the right lung at the Marne in 1914 and expected to die, he recovered with the Distinguished Service Order.¹⁵

In August 1942 he took over the Eighth Army in Egypt and won the defensive battle of Alam Halfa from 30 August. At El Alamein he commanded over 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks against 116,000 German and Italian troops. After almost two weeks of attrition from 23 October, Operation Supercharge broke the Axis line on 4 November, though his caution let the motorized part of Rommel’s army escape. In June 1944 he commanded all the Allied ground forces in the Normandy landings, 39 divisions. In September 1944 came what English Heritage calls his only major failure, Market Garden: of about 10,000 airborne troops landed at Arnhem, some 7,500 were killed or captured. In May 1945 he accepted the surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and north-west Germany at Lüneburg Heath.¹⁶

Myth vs fact: Churchill’s “end of the beginning” made El Alamein the turning point of the whole war in British memory; the National Army Museum calls that an overstatement, since North Africa was a sideshow beside the Eastern and Western Fronts.¹⁷

Why it ranks here: Recognition 5 as the best-known British general of World War II, and certainty 5; Market Garden holds his record to 4, and El Alamein turned one theater rather than the war, so consequence and legacy are 4. Montgomery, Henry V and Robert the Bruce all have 44 points; he leads them on recognition, level with Henry V, and then on consequence.

Read the full story of Bernard Montgomery ›

4 Henry V, about 1386 to 1422

Lived: 1386 or 1387 (the year is disputed) to 1422¹⁸
Served: Fought at Shrewsbury in 1403 and against the Welsh rising as prince; king of England 1413 to 1422¹⁹
Greatest victory: Agincourt, 1415: about 6,000 to 8,500 English against 12,000 to 30,000 French (disputed)²⁰
Record: Won Agincourt (1415); took Harfleur (1415), Caen (1417), Rouen (1419) and Meaux (1422) by siege²¹
Legacy: Heir to France by the Treaty of Troyes (1420); England lost all of France but Calais by 1453²²

Henry was born at Monmouth Castle in 1386 or 1387; writers of his own time give different dates, and the year is still unresolved. At about 16 he fought for his father at Shrewsbury in 1403 and then led the royal army that put down Owain Glyn Dŵr’s Welsh rising. He became king in 1413 and soon laid claim to the French crown.²³

He invaded Normandy in August 1415 with about 10,000 men and took Harfleur after a five-week siege, but fighting and dysentery cut his army to 6,000 or 7,000 as he marched for Calais. On 25 October, near Azincourt, the French attacked over freshly plowed fields turned to mud into his longbowmen. World History Encyclopedia gives the French about 20,000 men, some historians 36,000, while Anne Curry, working from the muster rolls, suggests about 8,500 English against some 12,000 French; around 7,000 French died, perhaps 500 English. Between 1417 and 1419 he took Normandy by siege, Caen and then Rouen, and the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 made him heir to the French throne. He died, probably of dysentery, at Vincennes on 31 August 1422. Myth vs fact: the two-fingered V sign did not start with his archers taunting the French; Curry calls the story almost certainly a 20th century urban myth.²⁴

Why it ranks here: Shakespeare made him a household name, so full marks for recognition, legacy and certainty; one great pitched battle holds his record to 4, and England lost all of France but Calais by 1453, so consequence is 3. On 44 points with Montgomery and Robert the Bruce, he follows Montgomery on consequence and leads Bruce on recognition.²⁵

Read the full story of Henry V ›

Medieval miniature of two armies of archers and armored men facing each other — The Battle of Agincourt in a miniature from an abridged chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, painted around 1470 to 1480. Public domain

5 Robert the Bruce, 1274 to 1329

Lived: 1274 to 1329²⁶
Served: King of Scots, 1306 to 1329, in the First War of Scottish Independence
Greatest victory: Bannockburn, 1314: 6,000 to 7,000 spearmen and 500 horse against 2,000 to 3,000 English heavy cavalry and about 16,000 foot²⁷
Record: Beaten at Methven and Dalry (1306); won Loudoun Hill (1307) and Bannockburn (1314)²⁸
Legacy: England recognized Scotland’s independence in 1328²⁹

Robert the Bruce was born at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire on 11 July 1274. Weeks after his rival John Comyn was stabbed in a church at Dumfries, he was made king at Scone on 25 March 1306. Within months he was beaten by an English army at Methven on 19 June and by the MacDougalls at Dalry, and fled to Rathlin Island. Myth vs fact: the spider that taught him to try again first appears in Walter Scott’s Tales of a Grandfather of 1827, which itself says the story rests only on family tradition.³⁰

At Loudoun Hill, on 10 May 1307, his small force waited behind ditches it had cut across the ground and broke an English army under Aymer de Valence, 3,000 strong by Barbour’s likely inflated count. At Bannockburn, in June 1314, Historic Environment Scotland puts his army at 6,000 to 7,000 spearmen and 500 horse against Edward II’s 2,000 to 3,000 heavy cavalry and about 16,000 foot. On the first day, by John Barbour’s account, Bruce killed Sir Henry de Bohun with one axe blow; on the second his schiltrons drove into an English army hemmed in on cramped ground. England refused to recognize Scotland’s independence until 1328; Bruce died on 7 June 1329.³¹

Why it ranks here: Bannockburn won Scotland’s independence and lives on in Scots Wha Hae and Flower of Scotland, so full marks for consequence and legacy; Methven holds his record to 4, and the numbers rest on later estimates, so certainty is 4. He has 44 points like Montgomery and Henry V but is less known outside Scotland, recognition 4, and follows them on the tie rule.³²

Read about Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn ›

6 Francis Drake, about 1540 to 1596

Lived: About 1540 to 1596; died of dysentery off Portobelo, Panama³³
Served: Privateer and naval commander for Elizabeth I, about 1570 to 1596
Greatest victory: The Armada, 1588, as vice-admiral to Lord Howard of Effingham³⁴
Record: Raided Cádiz (1587) and fought the Armada (1588); failed at Lisbon (1589), San Juan (1595) and Panama (1596)³⁵
Legacy: Second voyage round the world, 1577 to 1580; knighted on the deck of the Golden Hind³⁶

Francis Drake was born in Devon around 1540 and learned the sea with his cousin John Hawkins, on voyages that traded enslaved Africans to the Spanish Caribbean. A Spanish attack on their fleet at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568 began his lifelong war on Spain. From December 1577 to September 1580 he sailed round the world in the Golden Hind, only the second voyage to do it; in 1581 Elizabeth I knighted him on its deck.³⁷

In April 1587 he sailed into Cádiz and destroyed 33 ships by Royal Museums Greenwich’s count; the National Park Service says over a hundred were destroyed or captured. The raid delayed Philip II’s invasion by a year. When the Armada came in 1588, Drake commanded one of the four English squadrons and organized the fireships that broke its anchorage off Calais. Myth vs fact: he did not command the English fleet; Lord Howard of Effingham did, with Drake as his vice-admiral. His 1589 expedition with Sir John Norris attacked Lisbon against the queen’s orders and came home with huge losses; he was beaten off at San Juan in Puerto Rico in 1595 and at Panama in 1596, and died of dysentery off Portobelo on 28 January 1596.³⁸

Why it ranks here: A household name for the voyage round the world and the Armada, so full marks for recognition and legacy, and consequence 4, as the Armada ended the threat of invasion although the war ran on. The failures of 1589 to 1596 hold his record to 3, and counts that differ as widely as Cádiz’s give certainty 4. He ties Oliver Cromwell on 43 points and goes first on recognition.

7 Oliver Cromwell, 1599 to 1658

Lived: 1599 to 1658³⁹
Served: Parliament’s army from 1642, cavalry commander and then lieutenant-general; Lord Protector 1653 to 1658⁴⁰
Greatest victory: Dunbar, 1650: 11,000 to 12,000 English against 15,000 to 22,000 Scots (estimates differ)⁴¹
Record: Led the horse at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645); in command, won Preston (1648), Dunbar (1650) and Worcester (1651)⁴²
Legacy: Lord Protector; the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford (1649) still mark his name⁴³

Oliver Cromwell, born in Huntingdon in 1599, was a small landowner and member of Parliament with no military past; he was over 40 when he raised a troop of horse for Parliament in 1642. His disciplined, devout troopers were called the Ironsides, after Prince Rupert’s nickname for him.⁴⁴

At Marston Moor in July 1644 he led the cavalry of the left wing, whose disciplined charge decided the battle at the end, and at Naseby on 14 June 1645 his troopers drove off the Royalist horse and turned on the King’s infantry. Myth vs fact: neither was his own victory; at Naseby Sir Thomas Fairfax commanded, and Cromwell fought his first major battle in full command only at Preston in August 1648, against a larger Scottish army. His Irish campaign of 1649 opened with massacres at Drogheda and Wexford, where Catholic soldiers and civilians alike were slaughtered; the National Army Museum calls Ireland a blot on his reputation. At Dunbar, on 3 September 1650, his 11,000 to 12,000 men broke a Scottish army that Historic Environment Scotland puts at 15,000 to 22,000 and took about 10,000 prisoners. At Worcester in 1651 he crushed the Scottish army that had invaded England for Charles II. From 1653 to his death in 1658 he ruled as Lord Protector.⁴⁵

Why it ranks here: Unbeaten in the battles he commanded, with full marks for battlefield record and certainty; recognition is 4, because he is remembered more as the ruler who signed the King’s death warrant than as a soldier, and consequence and legacy are 4, because the monarchy came back in 1660. He ties Drake on 43 points and follows him on recognition.⁴⁶

8 William the Conqueror, about 1028 to 1087

Lived: About 1028 to 1087⁴⁷
Served: Duke of Normandy from 1035; king of England, 1066 to 1087⁴⁸
Greatest victory: Hastings, 1066: 5,000 to 7,000 men a side by modern estimates⁴⁹
Record: Won Varaville (1057) and Hastings (1066); beaten near Dol and at Gerberoy (1079)⁵⁰
Legacy: Replaced England’s ruling class; Domesday Book, 1086⁵¹

William was born around 1028, the illegitimate son of Duke Robert I of Normandy. Duke as a boy from 1035, he beat off French invasions, routing King Henry I’s army at Varaville in 1057. Claiming that Edward the Confessor had promised him the English throne, he landed unopposed at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 with around 7,000 men.⁵²

At Hastings, on 14 October, the English shield wall held its ridge through assault after assault in a battle that lasted all day; English Heritage puts each army at 5,000 to 7,000 men. It ended with King Harold dead. Myth vs fact: the arrow in Harold’s eye on the Bayeux Tapestry was added in 19th century repairs, and the accounts nearest the battle say four Norman knights hacked him down. Crowned on Christmas Day, William needed six more years of war. In 1069 to 1070 he drove the Danes from the north and laid waste Mercia and Northumbria, causing a famine that lasted at least nine years, and in 1072 he invaded Scotland and forced a truce on Malcolm III at Abernethy. In France his luck turned: he was defeated near Dol, and in 1079 his own son Robert beat and wounded him at Gerberoy.⁵³

Why it ranks here: Hastings replaced England’s ruling class and is remembered at Battle Abbey and on the Bayeux Tapestry, so full marks for consequence and legacy; he won it as a Norman invader, so recognition 4 on a list of British commanders, the defeats at Dol and Gerberoy hold his record to 3, and no one counted the armies, so certainty is 4. Alone on 42 points, he is one clear of the next two.⁵⁴

Read the full story of William the Conqueror ›

Embroidered scene of Norman knights on horseback with archers in the lower border — Duke William lifts his helmet to be recognized on the battlefield of Hastings, a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, made in the 1070s. Public domain

9 Richard the Lionheart, 1157 to 1199

Lived: 8 September 1157 (Oxford) to 6 April 1199 (Châlus, Aquitaine)⁵⁵
Served: King of England 1189 to 1199; led the English army on the Third Crusade, 1190 to 1192⁵⁶
Greatest victory: Arsuf, 7 September 1191, over Saladin’s army on the march to Jaffa⁵⁷
Record: Took Acre (1191), won Arsuf (1191), retook Jaffa (1192); never attacked Jerusalem⁵⁸
Legacy: The crusader king of legend; his three lions are still the royal arms⁵⁹

Richard, the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, made his name as a besieger of castles in Aquitaine and became king in 1189. He spent only about six months of his ten-year reign in England: his first aim was the Third Crusade, called after Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187.⁶⁰

At Acre, besieged by the crusaders since 1189, Richard paid his sappers to bring down the walls, and the city fell on 12 July 1191. When the terms for ransoming the garrison were not met, he had 2,700 Muslim prisoners beheaded, by the count of a crusader chronicle; World History Encyclopedia gives 2,500 to 3,000. Marching south along the coast, he turned on Saladin’s army at Arsuf on 7 September and beat it, though Saladin pulled back into the forest without heavy losses. Richard came within sight of Jerusalem but judged that his shrunken army could not hold it. He retook Jaffa in August 1192 and made a peace that left Saladin Jerusalem and the crusaders a strip of coast.⁶¹

Captured in Austria on the way home, he was freed in 1194 for 150,000 marks and died in 1199 of a crossbow wound at the siege of Châlus. Myth vs fact: medieval artists showed him unhorsing Saladin in a joust, but the two kings never met face to face.⁶²

Why it ranks here: Recognition takes full marks: no English warrior king is better known. But Jerusalem stayed with Saladin and the crusade won only a strip of coast, so consequence 3; he ties the Duke of Marlborough on 41 points and goes ahead of him on recognition.⁶³

Read the full story of Richard the Lionheart ›

10 Duke of Marlborough, 1650 to 1722

Lived: 26 May 1650 (Ashe, Devon) to 16 June 1722 (Cranbourn Lodge, near Windsor)⁶⁴
Served: Captain-General of the Allied armies against Louis XIV, 1702 to 1711⁶⁵
Greatest victory: Blenheim, 13 August 1704: 56,000 Allies with Prince Eugene against at least 60,000 French and Bavarians; 14,000 prisoners⁶⁶
Record: Won Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709), the last at a higher cost than the French paid⁶⁷
Legacy: Blenheim Palace; one of five finalists in the National Army Museum’s 2011 vote for Britain’s greatest general⁶⁸

John Churchill was born in Devon in 1650 into a Royalist family impoverished by the civil wars and rose through the court of Charles II. As Duke of Marlborough he became Captain-General of the Allied armies against Louis XIV in 1702, an appointment some contemporaries thought reckless.⁶⁹

In 1704 he marched 40,000 men 250 miles from the Low Countries to the Danube in five weeks and joined Prince Eugene of Savoy. On 13 August they attacked at Blenheim, 56,000 against at least 60,000 by the National Army Museum’s count; by evening the French and Bavarians had suffered at least 20,000 casualties and lost 14,000 prisoners, Marshal Tallard among them, and Vienna was saved. At Ramillies in 1706 he routed Marshal Villeroi, took all 70 French and Bavarian guns and mortars and won most of Brabant and Flanders for the Allies; at Oudenarde in 1708 he and Eugene beat an army of some 95,000. Malplaquet in 1709 was a harder bargain: the Allies lost more men than the beaten French, about 17,000 against 15,000 by BritishBattles’ figures.⁷⁰

At home Queen Anne turned against him, and at the end of 1711 he was dismissed amid charges of misusing public money. The palace the Crown granted him at Woodstock still carries the name of his greatest victory, and he lies in its chapel.⁷¹

Why it ranks here: His record takes full marks: four great victories and no defeat to set against them. But outside Britain few know him, so recognition 4, and he is remembered more by a palace than by the public, so legacy 3; level with Richard the Lionheart on 41 points, he goes below him on recognition.

Read about Marlborough at Blenheim ›

11 Edward the Black Prince, 1330 to 1376

Lived: 15 June 1330 (Woodstock) to 8 June 1376⁷²
Served: Prince of Wales from 1343 and Prince of Aquitaine from 1362; English armies in France and Castile⁷³
Greatest victory: Poitiers, 19 September 1356: perhaps 7,000 against 35,000 French (higher estimates 8,000 against 50,000); King John II captured⁷⁴
Record: Led a wing at Crécy (1346); won Poitiers (1356) and Nájera (1367); sacked Limoges (1370)⁷⁵
Legacy: His tomb, helmet and shield at Canterbury; the three feathers still worn by the Prince of Wales⁷⁶

Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, was born in 1330 and made Prince of Wales in 1343. Myth vs fact: nobody called him the Black Prince in his lifetime; the name appears only in the 16th century, perhaps from his black armor.⁷⁷

At Crécy on 26 August 1346, aged 16, he led the right wing of his father’s army, about 14,000 against some 35,000 by Britannica's figures, and fought hand to hand when the French nearly broke through. In 1356, raiding north from Bordeaux, he was cornered near Poitiers by John II. On 19 September his men, perhaps 7,000 against 35,000 by World History Encyclopedia’s figures, held a position behind a hedge and beat off the French divisions one by one until a flanking charge broke the last, and King John was taken prisoner. Under the Treaty of Brétigny of 1360 England kept about a quarter of France. At Nájera in Castile on 3 April 1367 he destroyed the army of Henry of Trastámara and his French allies under Bertrand du Guesclin.⁷⁸

In 1370 he retook Limoges and had it sacked; the toll of some 3,000 men, women and children, still repeated, comes from the chronicler Froissart and is being reassessed from a letter of the prince himself. By 1375 the English held little more than Calais and a strip of Gascony, and he died the next year.⁷⁹

Why it ranks here: Crécy, Poitiers and Nájera, with no defeat, give him full marks for his record. But the gains were nearly all lost by his death, so consequence 3; he ties Hugh Dowding on 40 points and goes ahead of him on recognition.

Read about the Black Prince at Poitiers ›

The capture of King John II of France at the Battle of Poitiers, 1356, in a Froissart manuscript — The capture of King John II at Poitiers in 1356, from a manuscript of Froissart's chronicle in the Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon. Public domain

12 Hugh Dowding, 1882 to 1970

Lived: 1882 to 1970⁸⁰
Served: Royal Flying Corps and RAF; Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command from its creation in July 1936 to late 1940⁸¹
Greatest victory: The Battle of Britain, 10 July to 31 October 1940; Hitler postponed the invasion on 17 September⁸²
Record: Won the Battle of Britain: 788 RAF aircraft lost against 1,294 German (World History Encyclopedia)⁸³
Legacy: The “Dowding System” of radar-guided air defense; the RAF Museum’s “architect of victory”⁸⁴

Hugh Dowding began in the artillery, learned to fly in 1913 and commanded a squadron in World War I. After serving as the RAF’s head of research and development he became the first commander of Fighter Command in July 1936. Its core was the Dowding System: radar stations, the Royal Observer Corps and intelligence feeding one network that sent fighters to meet each raid.⁸⁵

During the Battle of France he set out for the Air Ministry why no more fighters should be sent across the Channel, the decision the RAF Museum ranks as his most important. From 10 July to 31 October 1940 the Luftwaffe tried to win the command of the air an invasion needed. Dowding left the daily fighting to his group commanders, above all Keith Park, whose 11 Group took the brunt, and rarely committed more than half his force at once. On 17 September Hitler postponed the invasion. Myth vs fact: the few were not so few: Fighter Command began with about 768 aircraft and within weeks had some 1,400, against just over 1,000 German single-engine fighters.⁸⁶

Within weeks of the battle’s end he was forced out, criticized for refusing the massed “Big Wing” tactics; whether they would have worked better, the RAF Museum says, is still disputed.⁸⁷

Why it ranks here: Consequence takes full marks: his victory kept Britain in the war. But it was a single campaign, directed from his headquarters while Park ran the fighting, so record 4, and few people abroad know his name, so recognition 3; level with the Black Prince on 40 points, he goes below him on recognition.

Read about Dowding in the Battle of Britain ›

13 Douglas Haig, 1861 to 1928

Lived: 1861 (Edinburgh) to 1928⁸⁸
Served: British Army from 1884: Sudan, South Africa; commander of the British Expeditionary Force from December 1915 to the 1918 victory⁸⁹
Greatest victory: The Hundred Days, 8 August to 11 November 1918, opened at Amiens, “the black day of the German Army”⁹⁰
Record: Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917): huge losses, no breakthrough; won the offensives of 1918⁹¹
Legacy: Still argued over; a founder of the Royal British Legion⁹²

Douglas Haig, son of an Edinburgh whisky distiller, joined the army in 1884, served in Sudan and South Africa as an expert on cavalry, and in December 1915 took command of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front.⁹³

His first great offensive opened on the Somme on 1 July 1916 with 57,000 British casualties, the bloodiest day in the army’s history. When he shut it down on 18 November, the Allies had advanced seven miles for 420,000 British Empire and 200,000 French casualties. At Passchendaele in 1917 he kept attacking, in the National Army Museum’s words, long after it was clear to many that men were dying for little gain: 300,000 British casualties for five miles. On 8 August 1918 Rawlinson’s Fourth Army struck at Amiens, the day Ludendorff called the black day of the German Army, and when the armistice came on 11 November the British were back at Mons, where their war had begun.⁹⁴

Myth vs fact: the cavalryman who learned nothing is too simple a picture: the tanks, creeping barrages and new artillery methods worked out in his grim battles of 1916 and 1917 laid the foundations of the victories of 1918. After the war he worked for ex-servicemen and helped found the Royal British Legion.⁹⁵

Why it ranks here: His name is widely known, as much for the losses as for the victory, and he was one of the five finalists in the National Army Museum’s 2011 vote for Britain’s greatest general, so recognition 4. The Somme and Passchendaele hold his record to 3, which leaves him on 39 points, one below Hugh Dowding.⁹⁶

Read about Haig on the Somme ›

14 Robert Clive, 1725 to 1774

Lived: 1725 to 24 November 1774⁹⁷
Served: East India Company army from 1747; Governor of Bengal 1758 to 1760 and 1764 to 1767⁹⁸
Greatest victory: Plassey, 23 June 1757: about 3,000 (NAM) or 2,100 (our sum of WHE’s figures) against about 50,000⁹⁹
Record: Held Arcot (1751), won Plassey (1757); repulsed once outside Calcutta (1757)¹⁰⁰
Legacy: “Clive of India”, denounced in Parliament as a corrupt “nabob”¹⁰¹

Robert Clive went out to Madras as a clerk of the East India Company, lost his post when the French took the city in 1746 and became an ensign the next year. He made his name in 1751 by holding Arcot through a siege World History Encyclopedia puts at 52 days.¹⁰²

In 1756 the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, took Calcutta. Clive retook it on 2 January 1757, though an attack on the Nawab’s army outside the city failed and forced him back. He and the Jagat Seth bankers then secretly offered the throne to the Nawab’s cavalry commander, Mir Jafar. At Plassey on 23 June about 3,000 Company troops by the National Army Museum’s count, or 2,100 by our sum of World History Encyclopedia’s figures, faced some 50,000. Mir Jafar’s men stood aside, and by five in the afternoon his army had gone. In 1765 Clive won for the Company the right to collect Bengal’s land taxes, which made it ruler of India’s richest province.¹⁰³

Myth vs fact: later Britons saw Plassey as the birth of their Indian Empire, but World History Encyclopedia calls it not much more than a skirmish, won mostly because the Nawab’s commanders would not fight. Back home he was attacked in Parliament as a corrupt “nabob” and probably took his own life in 1774.¹⁰⁴

Why it ranks here: Consequence takes full marks: Company rule in India grew from Plassey. But he is remembered with unease, so legacy 3, and few outside Britain and India know his name, so recognition 3; on 38 points with James Wolfe and William Slim, he goes ahead of Slim on consequence and of Wolfe as the older man.

Read about Clive at Plassey ›

Oil portrait of a gray-haired officer in a red coat with a sash and star — Robert Clive, later 1st Baron Clive of Plassey, in a portrait from the studio of Nathaniel Dance in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Public domain

15 James Wolfe, 1727 to 1759

Lived: 2 January 1727 (Westerham, Kent) to 13 September 1759 (Quebec)¹⁰⁵
Served: British Army from 1741: Dettingen, Culloden; brigade commander at Louisbourg 1758; commander at Quebec 1759¹⁰⁶
Greatest victory: Quebec, 13 September 1759: about 4,500 British against about 4,500 French in the battle¹⁰⁷
Record: Shared in the taking of Louisbourg (1758); repulsed at Beauport (31 July 1759); won Quebec¹⁰⁸
Legacy: A national monument in Westminster Abbey (1772) and Benjamin West’s painting The Death of General Wolfe¹⁰⁹

James Wolfe, a general’s son from Westerham, entered the army at 14 and fought at Dettingen in 1743 and at Culloden in 1746, where, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography says, he may or may not have refused an order to shoot a wounded Highlander.¹¹⁰

In 1758 he was one of three brigade commanders under Jeffery Amherst at Louisbourg; he led the first landing under fire on 8 June, and the fortress, besieged by 13,100 troops and 150 ships, surrendered on 26 July. Made a major general at 32, he took 5,000 men up the St Lawrence in 1759 against Quebec, held by about 13,000 under Montcalm. His attack at Beauport on 31 July was repulsed with heavy losses. Early on 13 September he landed about 4,500 men below the cliffs; they climbed to the Plains of Abraham, and their volleys broke Montcalm’s attack. Both generals were mortally wounded. Quebec surrendered on 18 September, and the peace of 1763 gave Britain France’s lands east of the Mississippi.¹¹¹

Myth vs fact: Benjamin West’s painting of his death, which his biographer C. P. Stacey calls highly inaccurate, made Wolfe the man who won Canada, but Stacey judges Wolfe’s own attack of 31 July a costly failure and the winning plan basically his brigadiers’. A national monument to him was raised in Westminster Abbey in 1772.¹¹²

Why it ranks here: Consequence takes full marks: Quebec decided that Canada would be British. But one great victory after a summer of failed attacks holds his record to 3; on 38 points he matches Robert Clive on recognition and consequence and goes below him as the younger man, and ahead of William Slim on consequence.

How we chose and ranked these British commanders

We counted a commander as anyone who led the army or fleet of England or Scotland before the union of 1707, or of Great Britain after it, in person, on land or at sea, from 1066 to World War II, the same frame as our guide to the greatest battles in British history, where the battles themselves are ranked. Kings count only for the battles they commanded themselves, which is why William the Conqueror is here as the king who led English armies after Hastings and Alfred the Great, who fought before there was a kingdom of England, is not. The best of every nation are in the greatest military commanders and the greatest commanders by era.¹¹³

We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of who the greatest British commanders were; battlefield record, consequence and legacy count twice, and certainty once:

Recognition (×3). 5 if the commander is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of British commanders, 1 if only specialists know the name.
Battlefield record (×2). 5 if he won several decisive victories in person, some against the odds, with no defeat to match, 1 if he is known for no victory of his own or for a disaster.
Consequence (×2). 5 if his victories changed states, wars or borders for centuries, 1 if they changed nothing lasting.
Legacy (×2). 5 if he is studied, imitated and remembered today (national memory, monuments, ships, film and television), 1 if he is forgotten.
Certainty (×1). 5 if his campaigns are documented by independent sources on both sides, 1 if they rest on chronicles written long after or on legend.

The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known commander, then to the one whose victories changed more, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why William Slim, who tied with Wellington in the National Army Museum's 2011 vote for Britain's greatest general, is not in the fifteen: his Burma campaign scores as well as Clive's and Wolfe's victories, but outside the army few people know his name, and their victories changed more.¹¹⁴

The scores behind the ranking
Rank	Name	Recognition ×3	Battlefield record ×2	Consequence ×2	Legacy ×2	Certainty ×1	Total
1	Horatio Nelson	5	4	5	5	5	48
2	Duke of Wellington	5	5	5	4	5	48
3	Bernard Montgomery	5	4	4	4	5	44
4	Henry V	5	4	3	5	5	44
5	Robert the Bruce	4	4	5	5	4	44
6	Francis Drake	5	3	4	5	4	43
7	Oliver Cromwell	4	5	4	4	5	43
8	William the Conqueror	4	3	5	5	4	42
9	Richard the Lionheart	5	4	3	4	4	41
10	Duke of Marlborough	4	5	4	3	5	41
11	Edward the Black Prince	4	5	3	4	4	40
12	Hugh Dowding	3	4	5	4	5	40
13	Douglas Haig	4	3	4	4	5	39
14	Robert Clive	3	4	5	3	5	38
15	James Wolfe	3	3	5	4	5	38

Close calls

Five commanders came close and did not make the fifteen:

William Slim, 1891 to 1970. Given command of the Burma Corps after the Japanese had driven it out of Rangoon in March 1942, he kept its 900-mile retreat to India from turning into a rout, then rebuilt it as the Fourteenth Army, which held Imphal and Kohima in 1944, took Meiktila and Mandalay in March 1945 and was 30 miles from Rangoon when the city fell in May. The audience at the National Army Museum’s 2011 debate on Britain’s greatest general could not choose between him and Wellington and crowned both. But the Gurkha Museum notes that he is much less known outside military history than Montgomery, so recognition 3, and his 38 points tie Clive and Wolfe, whose victories changed more.¹¹⁵

Herbert Kitchener, 1850 to 1916. The face on the “Your Country Needs You” poster destroyed the Mahdist army at Omdurman on 2 September 1898 and, as Lord Roberts’s chief of staff, did much to win the Boer War, though the blame for its scorched earth and concentration camps fell on him. In World War I he was Secretary of State for War, who raised the New Armies, not a commander in the field, and his victories were won against much weaker enemies: 37 points.¹¹⁶ › Battle of Spion Kop, 1900

William Wallace, about 1270 to 1305. Braveheart made him famous far beyond Scotland, and with Andrew Moray he routed a larger English army at Stirling Bridge on 11 September 1297. But Edward I beat him at Falkirk on 22 July 1298, and much of his story comes from Blind Harry’s ballad of about 1470, the basis of the film, so his battlefield record, consequence and certainty all score low: 35 points.¹¹⁷

Edward I, 1239 to 1307. As prince he beat Simon de Montfort at Evesham on 4 August 1265; as king he subdued Wales from 1276 and built Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech to hold it, and he beat Wallace at Falkirk in 1298. But the Hammer of the Scots never subdued Scotland, and few outside Britain know his name: 35 points.¹¹⁸

Andrew Cunningham, 1883 to 1963. Commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet when war came, he struck the Italian fleet at Taranto, his master stroke, and beat it at Cape Matapan in March 1941, then kept his fleet fighting through heavy losses off Crete. His biographer John Winton called him the greatest admiral since Nelson, but only naval historians know his name, so recognition 2 and 35 points.¹¹⁹

Who was Britain's greatest general?

The Duke of Wellington, by our scores and by most published answers: he is the highest-placed commander on this list who fought on land, and he beat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. Only the admiral Horatio Nelson, with the same 48 points, stands above him, because the tie rule favors the older man. When the National Army Museum put the question to a public vote in 2011, the audience at the final debate could not separate Wellington from William Slim and crowned both. Slim misses our fifteen because few outside the army know his name, while the other three finalists, Oliver Cromwell, the Duke of Marlborough and Douglas Haig, are seventh, tenth and thirteenth here.¹²⁰

Who was Britain's greatest admiral?

Horatio Nelson, the No. 1 on this list. He won the Nile in 1798 and Copenhagen in 1801, and at Trafalgar in 1805 his 27 ships beat 33 French and Spanish and took 17 of them, a victory that began a century of British naval supremacy. Francis Drake, sixth here, owes his fame more to his voyage round the world than to command: against the Armada in 1588 he was vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. Of the admirals who missed the list, Andrew Cunningham, who beat the Italian fleet at Cape Matapan in 1941, was called the greatest admiral since Nelson by his biographer, but few outside the navy know his name.¹²¹ › Francis Drake

Walk their battles in the greatest battles in British history and the greatest medieval battles, or measure them against the world's best in the greatest military commanders and the greatest commanders by era.