Who was the better general, Napoleon or Alexander the Great?
There is no settled answer, but on the battlefield we give the edge to Alexander: he won all four of his great pitched battles and conquered a vast empire before he was thirty-three. Napoleon fought far more battles against tougher coalitions and left a deeper legacy of institutions. Alexander was arguably the greater conqueror, Napoleon the greater statesman-general.
More than two thousand years separate them: Alexander was born in Pella in 356 BC, Napoleon in Ajaccio in 1769. Alexander the Great won all four of his great pitched battles and carved out one of the largest empires of the ancient world before he was thirty-three; Napoleon dominated Europe and reshaped the art of war, only to be undone in the end by Russia and the coalitions ranged against him. Here they are, side by side.1
Head to head
| Napoleon | Alexander the Great | |
|---|---|---|
| Lived | 1769 to 18212 | 356 to 323 BC3 |
| Age at death | 51, in exile on Saint Helena4 | 32, in Babylon5 |
| Years in power | First Consul from 1799, emperor 1804 to 1814 and again in 18156 | King of Macedon 336 to 323 BC, about 13 years7 |
| Role | Emperor of the French and general | King of Macedon and conqueror |
| Greatest victory | Austerlitz, 1805, aged 36 | Gaugamela, 331 BC, aged 25 |
| Battles | About 60 fought, by Andrew Roberts’s count8 | Four great pitched battles, none lost9 |
| Empire at its height | 134 departments in 1812, 47 of them beyond France’s old borders, plus satellite states; about 2.1 million km² (0.8 million mi²) with its controlled lands in 1813, on Rein Taagepera’s estimate10 | About 5.2 million km² (2.0 million mi²) in 323 BC, on Rein Taagepera’s estimate11 |
| Reach | Master of most of Europe | From Greece to the edge of India |
| Undoing | The invasion of Russia in 1812 and the coalitions | Died at 32; his empire split among his generals |
| Lasting legacy | The Napoleonic Code and modern warfare | The Hellenistic world and the template for every later conqueror |
Alexander: the undefeated conqueror
Unlike Napoleon, who had to fight his way up, Alexander the Great was handed a first-rate army by his father Philip and, in barely a decade, destroyed the Persian Empire and marched to India. His victory at Gaugamela in 331 BC is one of the most famous in history, and he won every one of his great pitched battles. His weakness was what came after: he died at thirty-two with no settled succession, and his empire was torn apart by his generals.12
Napoleon: the master of Europe
Napoleon made his own career out of the chaos of the French Revolution and ended up master of a continent, with brilliant wins like Austerlitz in 1805 and a lasting overhaul of law, government and warfare. He also fought many more battles than Alexander and against coalition after coalition. But the invasion of Russia in 1812 broke his army, and defeat at Waterloo in 1815 ended him for good.13
Who lived first, Alexander or Napoleon?
Alexander lived first, by more than two thousand years. He was born in Pella, the capital of Macedon, in 356 BC and died in Babylon in June 323 BC. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 15 August 1769 and died on Saint Helena on 5 May 1821. Their births lie 2,124 years apart.14
Alexander also made his name far younger. He took the throne at twenty, after his father Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, and broke the Persian king Darius III at Gaugamela at twenty-five. Napoleon seized power as First Consul at thirty, in the coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799, and won Austerlitz at thirty-six.15
How many battles did Napoleon and Alexander win?
Napoleon fought about 60 battles, the count given by his biographer Andrew Roberts. Alexander fought four great pitched battles, at the Granicus in 334 BC, Issus in 333 BC, Gaugamela in 331 BC and the Hydaspes in 326 BC, and won every one of them.16
The two totals measure different kinds of war. Napoleon’s defeats included the failed siege of Acre in 1799, Aspern-Essling in 1809, Leipzig in 1813 and Waterloo in 1815. Alexander’s decade of campaigning also included long sieges, such as Tyre in 332 BC, and a hard counter-guerrilla war in Bactria and Sogdiana from 329 to 327 BC against the Sogdian leader Spitamenes. For the emperor’s great days in the field, see the greatest Napoleonic battles.17
Who conquered more, Napoleon or Alexander?
Alexander, by a wide margin. Estimates by the political scientist Rein Taagepera put his empire at its height in 323 BC at about 5.2 million square kilometers, roughly 2 million square miles, stretching from Greece and Egypt to the Indus. Napoleon’s French Empire of 1812 counted 134 departments, 47 of them beyond France’s old borders, with satellite kingdoms farther out.18
Napoleon’s power reached beyond his frontier. France annexed the Low Countries and western Germany outright; farther afield, in Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, it ruled through dependent states of its own making. Rein Taagepera put France and the lands it controlled in Europe at about 2.1 million km² (0.8 million mi²) in 1813, less than half of Alexander’s total, though the two empires are better compared in kind than in square kilometers. Neither lasted: Alexander’s empire was divided among his generals after his death, and Napoleon’s collapsed in his own lifetime, with his abdications of 1814 and 1815.19
Who was the better general? Our verdict
On the battlefield, our verdict goes to Alexander. He won every pitched battle he fought, conquered more territory and did it all before he was thirty-three. Napoleon is the greater all-round figure: a commander who fought far more battles against armies organized much like his own, and a lawmaker whose Napoleonic Code outlived his empire.20
Three caveats keep this a judgment rather than a fact. First, the opponents differ: Napoleon faced coalition after coalition of European powers, while Alexander’s great victories came against the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Indian king Porus. Second, Alexander died at 32 with his record intact, whereas Napoleon’s includes the years of decline from 1812 to 1815. Third, the evidence differs: Alexander’s campaigns are known mainly through later writers, above all Arrian, who wrote in the second century AD and drew on earlier accounts by Ptolemy I and Aristobulus.21
The American military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge, comparing six great captains in 1889, put the problem plainly: “We cannot try Alexander by the standard of Napoleon.” Even so, he placed Alexander first for energy and drive, and judged that Napoleon’s genius showed most clearly on the familiar fields of Europe.22
The case for Alexander is his flawless record and the sheer daring of his conquest, achieved impossibly young. The case for Napoleon is scale and depth: more battles, tougher enemies, and a legacy of institutions that outlived him. Alexander was arguably the greater conqueror; Napoleon the greater statesman-general. Where you land often depends on whether you prize an unbeaten record or the weight of what a commander leaves behind. Napoleon meets another ancient rival in our Hannibal vs Napoleon comparison, where both men won famous battles and lost their wars, while Alexander meets the Carthaginian in Hannibal vs Alexander.
See the Macedonian against Rome in Alexander vs Caesar and the emperor against his nemesis in Napoleon vs Wellington, or check how both rank among the greatest military commanders. Napoleon and Alexander are both among the eight commanders you can turn out to be in Which Commander Are You?
About this comparison
Napoleon and Alexander both have a full biography on this site, each backed by its own sources. Calling either one "greater" is our verdict and very much open to debate; the facts and dates rely on established histories. Our editorial policy sets out the method.
.jpg){kind=link}