Battle Of Thermopylae Research Paper

The Battle of thermopylae was an important battle for both the persian and greek army, the leader of the persian fleet was Xerxes whose army was far more larger than King Leonidas, leader of the Greek army, but Leonidas was a far more tactical and smarter war general than Xerxes.
There are many topics that you can cover when trying to figure out who was the more superior war general. Army Sizes is one of them. The Greek army consisted of the 300 spartan warriors who were highly trained throughout their whole childhood. In the battle they, Greece combined with other Greek states to ultimately hold off the persian army to save their city of (sparta). Onced they combined it gave the greek army around 7,000 men to hold off the persian fleet. On the other hand, the
Persian army consisted around 100,000-150,000 men who were trying to take and burn the city states down to the ground.The Battle of thermopylae took place in thermopylae Greece, which was an elevated mountain pass overlooking the Malian Gulf.
The pass was about 330 feet in width. Leonities tactics helped him defend the large Persian fleet by creating a battle formation called Phalanx formation in which the men formed a wall of overlapping shields and protruded their spears out from the sides of the shields. This war tactic helped defend the persian attack because since the pass was only 330 feet wide Xerxes couldn't call his army to all attack at once they had to attack in waves so that made it easier for the spartans to hold off the massive persian army. Xerxes attacked greece because Darius originally attacked Greece because the Athenians gave support to the "Ionian Revolt" against Persian rule in Asia Minor. Darius's army was decisively defeated at the Battle of Marathon in the first attempt to invade Greece. After Darius died his son, Xerxes, vowed revenge for his father's defeat at the Battle of
Marathon, that's why he invaded Greece. Leonidas troops slowly began to crumble causing the last stand to place which meant it was a last effort to do as much damage to the persian army as they could. They broke the phalanx and made one last attempt to try to defeat this huge persian army.
In my opinion I believe that King Leonidas was a better war general than Xerxes because although Xerxes army was far more larger than the greeks, but they didnt trained as hard as the spartan warriors. You would think that is should have been an easy win for Xerxes and the persians with a high powered fleet against a much smaller greek army. King leonidas was a better war general with his strategic move to fight the battle in Thermopylae Greece because since they had a much smaller army it was hard for the Persians to attack because of the small straight which Leonides was blocking. Leonides strategically mapped out the Thermopylae pass so that the only way to puncture the Spartan warriors was to send in waves of persians making it easier for Leonides troops to hold off the persians. Although Xerxes finally broke down the spartan warriors and defeated King Leonidas, King Leonidas did not need to go to battle and die with the men of Sparta but he felt as a trained Spartan warrior it was his duty to fight and die with his men. The courage that King Leonidas displayed to his men made him the greatest leader of all time in my mind. He is the greatest example of bravery and leadership.