The 15 Greatest Wartime Leaders in History

Some of these men held a line for four years; others crossed a continent and never lost a battle. Ancient generals sit alongside people who ran wars by telephone.

1

Napoleon Bonaparte

Fought some sixty battles and reshaped European law and borders between them.

1000pts

2

Winston Churchill

Took office in May 1940 with Britain alone and turned refusal to negotiate into national policy.

794pts

3

Horatio Nelson

Broke the Franco-Spanish line at Trafalgar and ended the threat of invasion.

741pts

4

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only US president elected four times, who ran the American war effort from a wheelchair.

600pts

5

Queen Elizabeth I

Rallied her troops at Tilbury with the Spanish Armada in the Channel.

529pts

6

Duke of Wellington

Beat Napoleon at Waterloo after grinding down French armies across Spain and Portugal.

529pts

7

Boudica

Led the Iceni revolt that burned Roman London to the ground.

448pts

8

George Washington

Held a ragged Continental Army together for eight years against the world's strongest navy.

448pts

9

Genghis Khan

Built the largest contiguous land empire in history from a fractured steppe.

448pts

10

Julius Caesar

Conquered Gaul, wrote the account himself, and made his own commentaries a Latin set text.

448pts

11

Alexander the Great

Took the Macedonian army from Greece to the Indus without losing a major battle.

448pts

12

Charles de Gaulle

Broadcast from London in 1940 to declare that France had lost a battle, not the war.

353pts

13

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Supreme Allied Commander who planned and launched the Normandy landings.

240pts

14

Hannibal Barca

Marched elephants over the Alps and beat Rome at Cannae with a smaller army.

240pts

15

Simón Bolívar

Freed six South American countries from Spanish rule in a fifteen-year campaign.

240pts