Military Leaders
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Military Leaders Encyclopedia Articles
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Kemal Atatürk
Kemal Atatürk soldier, statesman, and reformer who was the founder and first president (1923–38) of the Republic of Turkey. He modernized the country’s legal and educational systems and encouraged the...
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell English soldier and statesman, who led parliamentary forces in the English Civil Wars and was lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1653–58) during the republican Commonwealth....
Hannibal
Hannibal was a Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218–201 bce) and who continued to oppose...
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan Mongolian warrior-ruler, one of the most famous conquerors of history, who consolidated tribes into a unified Mongolia and then extended his empire across Asia to the Adriatic Sea. Genghis...
St. Joan of Arc
St. Joan of Arc ; canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30; French national holiday, second Sunday in May) national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance,...
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party (from 1920/21) and chancellor (Kanzler) and Führer of Germany (1933–45). His worldview revolved around two concepts: territorial expansion and racial supremacy....
Frederick II
Frederick II king of Prussia (1740–86), a brilliant military campaigner who, in a series of diplomatic stratagems and wars against Austria and other powers, greatly enlarged Prussia’s territories and made...
George Washington
George Washington American general and commander in chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution (1775–83) and subsequently first president of the United States (1789–97). Washington’s father,...
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was a military hero and the seventh president of the United States (1829–37). He was the first U.S. president to come from the area west of the Appalachians and the first to gain office...
Augustus
Augustus first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known as the principate...
Napoleon I
Napoleon I French general, first consul (1799–1804), and emperor of the French (1804–1814/15), one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization...
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar celebrated Roman general and statesman, the conqueror of Gaul (58–50 bce), victor in the civil war of 49–45 bce, and dictator (46–44 bce), who was launching a series of political and social...
Peter I
Peter I tsar of Russia who reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V (1682–96) and alone thereafter (1696–1725) and who in 1721 was proclaimed emperor (imperator). He was one of his country’s greatest...
George Catlett Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was a general of the army and U.S. Army chief of staff during World War II (1939–45) and later U.S. secretary of state (1947–49) and of defense (1950–51). The European Recovery...
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great king of Macedonia (336–323 bce), who overthrew the Persian empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already...