Great Captains Author:Theodore Ayrault Dodge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III. CLffiSAK. CAIUS JULIUS OESAR is the only one of the great captains who trained himself to arms. Alexander, Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus, Freder... more »ick, owed their early military training to their fathers, though, indeed, Frederick's was but the pipe-clay of war. Napoleon got his in the best school in France. Every I Ionian citizen was, to be sure, trained as a soldier, and Caesar had had a slight experience in some minor campaigns. But the drilling of the soldier cannot produce the captain. And Caesar began his military career at an age when that of the others — except Frederick — had ceased. A comparison of ages is interesting. Alexander made his marvellous campaigns between twenty-one and thirty- three years of age. Gustavus Adolphus' independent military career was from seventeen to thirty-eight, the last two years being those which entitle him to rank with the great captains. Hannibal began at - twenty-six and never left the harness till he was forty-five. Napoleon's wonderful wars began at twenty-seven and ended at forty-six. Frederick opened his Silesian struggles at twenty -nine and closed them at fifty-one; the Seven Tears' War ran from his forty-fifth to his fifty-second year. Caesar began at forty-two and ended at fifty-five. Thus the only two of the great captains whose best work was done near the fifties were Caesar and Frederick. Of the others, Hannibal and Gustavus Adolphus were most admirable in the thirties, Napoleon between twenty- seven and thirty-nine, Alexander in the twenties. To take the age of each in the middle of his military career, Alexander and Gustavus were twenty-seven, Hannibal thirty-six, Napoleon thirty-seven, Frederick forty, and Caesar forty-eight. Or, to place each at the height of his ability, Alexander was twenty-five, Hann...« less