The World's WORST Generals in History

[Conrad_Jalowski]

Pyrrhus of Epirus has achieved everlasting fame for his ineptitude.

I would actually disagree with this statement. King Pyrrhus I of Epirus was tactically effective with his skilled use of war elephants and heavy cavalry. The Epirote king managed to defeat the Romans at the battles of Heraclea in 280 BCE and Asculum in 279 BCE. Although Asculum was a Pyrrhic victory or a victory that was achieved at a great loss of soldiers, one must keep in mind that Pyrrhus' greatest weakness was his mercurial or erratic nature and lack of a coherent military objective as opposed to military incompetence. Plutarch in his Parallel Lives recorded that Hannibal Barca ranked Pyrrhus of Epirus as the greatest commander the world had seen up to that point while according to Appian, Hannibal placed Pyrrhus as the greatest general after Alexander III of Macedon. In his campaign in Sicily, Pyrrhus was able to seize the entire island [Including the strongest Carthaginian stronghold at Eryx] except for the port-city of Lilybaeum despite the loss of manpower that he suffered in his two victories over the Romans at Heraclea and Asculum.

King Pyrrhus of Epirus lived from 319-272 BCE and ruled as the autocrat of Epirus from 306-302 BCE and 298-272 BCE. Pyrrhus of Epirus fought at the great battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE in the Diadochian Wars of Successon that occurred after the dissolution of the Alexandrian Empire. Pyrrhus later reclaimed his throne and initially ruled in a duumvirate with Neoptolemus II. After the mysterious death of his co-ruler in the short-lived duumvirate, Pyrrhus became the sole sovereign of the Epirote Kingdom. After securing his throne, King Pyrrhus of Epirus with aid provided by the Diadochi Lysimachus drove out Demetrius I Poliorcetes [The son of Antigonus I Monopthalmus] from Macedonia proper. After the joint invasion of Macedonia, Lysimachus then expelled King Pyrrhus of Epirus from the Kingdom of Macedon.

Following on a plea from the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia or "Greater Greece" in southern Italy such as from the Tarentines, King Pyrrhus of Epirus invaded the Roman Republic in the conflict of the Pyrrhic Wars that lasted from 280-275 BCE. King Pyrrhus' army was a conglomerate: Epirote heavy phalangists in the phalangiarchies or phalanx formations, Macedonian pezhetairoi, Greek auxiliaries, peltasts or skirmishers, the hypaspistai, war elephants, cataphracts, the Hetairoi or Companion Cavalry, Epirote auxiliaries and levied forces. The Pyrrhic Wars of 280-275 BCE consisted of the main battles of Heraclea in 280 BCE, Asculum in 279 BCE and Beneventum in 275 BCE. King Pyrrhus of Epirus also invaded Sicily and managed to subjugate almost the entire length of Sicily but failed to wrest control of Lilybaeum from the Carthaginians. At the conclusion of this conflict with his defeat at the battle of Beneventum, King Pyrrhus of Epirus lost all his Sicilian and Italian holdings as he departed from the Italian Peninsula. In 272 BCE, the Epirote garrison capitulated to the besieging Romans alongside with the entirety of Magna Graecia. In 270 BCE, the Roman Republic maintained hegemony over the entire length of the Italian Peninsula from the Po River Valley in the north to Magna Graecia in the south.

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For the category of mediocre commanders, I nominate:

-Publius Quinctilius Varus
-Tiberius Sempronius Longus
-Gaius Terentius Varro
-Marcus Licinius Crassus
-Darius III Codomanus