“The personality of the general is indispensable; he is the head, he is the all, of an army. The Gauls were not conquered by the Roman Legion, but by Caesar. It was not before the Carthagenian soldiers that Rome was made to tremble, but before Hannibal. It was not the Macedonian phalanx which penetrated into India, but Alexander.”

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 to 1821)

Also known as Napoleon I, the Corsican or the Little Corporal, he was a French general, first consul of France (1799-1804), and emperor of the French (1804-1814/15), one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West.

He revolutionised military organisation and training; sponsored the Napoleonic Code, the prototype of later civil-law codes; reorganised education; and established the long-lived Concordat with the papacy.