The Greatest Commanders of France

Few nations have produced so long a line of famous commanders as France, from the Frankish champion who turned back an invasion in the eighth century to the emperor who conquered most of Europe. These are the great commanders of France, in triumph and disaster alike, each linked to the battle or campaign that made their name.

Napoleon Bonaparte. The emperor whose victories, above all Austerlitz, made him master of Europe before his final fall at Waterloo.

Turenne. The marshal Napoleon ranked among the great captains, a master of the war of maneuver under Louis XIV.

Charles Martel. The Frankish leader who halted the Umayyad advance at Tours in 732.¹

Joan of Arc. The Maid of Orleans, whose faith and daring helped turn the Hundred Years War.

Thirteen centuries of war

The story runs from Charles Martel at Tours in 732, through the dark days of the Hundred Years War that Joan of Arc helped turn, to the age of Turenne and the great wars of Napoleon. It is a history of dazzling victories such as Austerlitz and of hard defeats such as Waterloo, told honestly.²

Why is Napoleon usually called France's greatest general?

Because no other French commander fought and won on his scale. Napoleon (1769 to 1821) fought about 60 battles and lost seven, according to both World History Encyclopedia and his biographer Andrew Roberts. At its height in 1813, France with the lands it controlled covered about 2.1 million km² (0.8 million mi²).³

He died in exile on Saint Helena on 5 May 1821, aged 51. Napoleon himself pointed officers back to an earlier Frenchman: one of his maxims tells them to study again and again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederick. The Great Condé, who beat the Spanish at Rocroi on 19 May 1643 at the age of 21, is not on that list; during the Fronde he went over to Spain and was beaten by Turenne at the Dunes in 1658. Vauban, Louis XIV's military engineer, earns his place for another reason: Britannica credits him with revolutionizing siege warfare and fortification, and twelve groups of his fortified sites are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.⁴

Who was the greatest French general of World War I?

Ferdinand Foch is the usual answer. In the spring of 1918 the Allies placed their armies under his single command, and Britannica calls him the leader generally considered most responsible for the Allied victory. Joseph Joffre won the Marne in 1914 and Philippe Pétain held Verdun in 1916, but neither led the coalition to victory.²¹

Foch commanded the Ninth Army at the Marne in 1914 and in 1916, at the head of the French armies of the north, directed the Somme offensive. In early May 1918 he became commander in chief of the Allied armies on the Western and Italian fronts, received his marshal's baton on 6 August 1918 and dictated the armistice terms at Rethondes on 11 November. Britain and Poland later made him a marshal too.²²

Joffre, the commander in chief of 1914, is credited with the victory of the Marne, but after the losses of 1916 he lost direct command and was made a marshal of France that December. Pétain took command at Verdun in February 1916 and became known as its victor; he restored order after the mutinies of 1917 and was made a marshal in November 1918. After 1940 he headed the Vichy regime, and in August 1945 he was condemned to death, a sentence commuted to life imprisonment.²³

How many marshals of France have there been?

There is no single official count. Britannica traces the office to the reign of Philip II, who died in 1223; the number of marshals grew from two in the thirteenth century to as many as 20 in the eighteenth, before the Revolution abolished the office in 1793.²⁴

Napoleon created marshals of the Empire in 1804; his successors restored the title of marshal of France, which survives as a rare honor normally conferred in wartime. In May 1804 Napoleon named 18 marshals of the Empire; the historian Alexander Mikaberidze counts 26 in all over his reign. Today the title is a dignity, not a rank: the Musée de l'Armée explains that it is given only to a general who has commanded an army to victory in wartime. Four generals received it after World War II: Leclerc, de Lattre de Tassigny, Juin and Koenig. Koenig received the dignity posthumously, in 1984.²⁵

Who was the best of Napoleon's marshals?

Louis-Nicolas Davout is the name given most often. World History Encyclopedia says he never lost a battle and is often regarded as the best of Napoleon's commanders, and the Fondation Napoléon calls him arguably the finest corps commander among the marshals. His reputation rests above all on Auerstedt in 1806.²⁶

On 14 October 1806, while Napoleon fought at Jena, Davout's III Corps of about 26,000 to 27,000 men met the main Prussian army of roughly 60,000 to 64,000 at Auerstedt and beat it. He was nicknamed the Iron Marshal for the strict discipline he imposed. The unbeaten record has a caveat: during the retreat from Moscow in November 1812 his corps suffered a heavy defeat near Fyodorovskoye and was relieved as the rearguard, according to the Fondation Napoléon.²⁷

Walk the battles in the greatest battles of France, or measure these commanders against the world's best in the greatest military commanders. Their wars, era by era, are told in the military history of France, and Joan of Arc's war has its own page, the Hundred Years' War.