Generalissimo

A generalissimo is a commissioned officer of the highest rank; the word is often translated as "Supreme Commander" or "Commander in Chief". It is an Italian superlative substantive, which grammatically would actually be disallowed in Italian (superlatives can be made with adjectives only). When used as a noun, the correct sense is "General of the highest degree" (or commander in chief of the entire armed forces of a specific country); as an adjective, the closest English form is "most general," but the concept is best expressed by the grammatically incorrect expression "most generalest." The term "Generalissimo" in English has come to refer to a kind of ruler who has ascended to that position by a military coup. In most developed English-speaking countries, the term commonly evokes the image of corrupt dictatorships and so-called "banana republics."

Famous Generalissimos

Austria:

• Raimondo Montecuccoli (1609-80)
• Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736)
• Leopold Josef Graf Daun (1705-1766)
• Archduke Charles (1771-1847)
• Karl zu Schwarzenberg (1771-1820)

Britain:

• Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619-1682)

China:

• Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975)

France:

• Henry III of France (1551-1589)
• Henry I, Duke of Guise (1550-88)
• Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1621-88)
• Turenne (1611-1675)
• Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars (1653-1734)
• Maurice de Saxe (1696-1750)
• Louis-François-Armand du Plessis (1696-1788)
• Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult (1760-1851)

Germany:

• Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634)

North Korea:

• Kim Il Sung (1912-1994)

Russia:

• Aleksei Shein (1662-1700)
• Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov (1673-1729)
• Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1714-1776)
• Aleksandr Suvorov (1729-1800)
• Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)

Spain:

• Don John of Austria (1547-1578)
• Francisco Franco (1892–1975)