Mehmed II
Rulers likely shouldn’t be on this list as they rarely went on campaign and when they did they had hosts of advisors and commanders that fought the battle for them. Mehmed was different. As a young Sultan, Mehmed was determined to expand the Ottoman Empire and would spearhead the expansion himself.
We certainly should consider the capture of Constantinople as one of Mehmed’s greatest accomplishments. Even considering that the Byzantines were significantly depleted and the Ottomans had the newest and largest cannons and a massive army, Constantinople was a truly tough city to crack. Mehmed had ships brought overland to secure the harbor of the city and had the thought to launch a concerted final attack, accepting that his army would suffer losses against the well-defended city.
While the capture of new capital was quite a feat, Mehmed was only 21, and just getting started. Before he was 30, Mehmed secured the rest of Greece and the remnants of the Byzantine territory along the Black Sea. He had clashes with Vlad the Impaler and survived a daring night raid by Vlad that aimed at assassinating the Sultan.
Mehmed isn’t higher on this list because he almost always had a significant advantage in men and guns, but he still proved to be a talented leader. Many of Mehmed’s campaigns began when another Ottoman army was defeated and Mehmed came in a punitive campaign. It was in this way that he secured much of modern eastern Turkey and pushed into Europe.
Mehmed knew how to use his many varieties of troops well, he had no problems using his weaker troops as cannon fodder and sent his elite Janissaries in to finish an assault. Though he failed to take some cities, many of campaigns involved successful sieges and assaults. It is hard to list all the battles, but when we look at the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the securing of Anatolia, it’s important to recognize that Mehmed II personally led several of those campaigns.