General

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For other uses, see General (disambiguation).

A General is an officer of high military rank. The term is used by nearly every country in the world. General may be a rank on its own, or can be used as a generic term for "general officers". In most nations, the various grades of General are at the top of the rank structure; but some countries have even higher ranks such as Field Marshal or Marshal.

"General Officer", often referred to less formally and imprecisely as "General", refers to a military officer who holds any rank grade of General. The exact rank of a general may be determined by combining a prefix (e.g. Major General) or suffix (e.g. General of the Army).

A General, without prefix or suffix (and sometimes referred to informally as a "full general"), is usually the most senior general officer rank, above Lieutenant General. In some armies, however, the rank of Captain General, General of the Army, Army General or Colonel General occupied or occupies this position. These ranks may be considered to be equivalent to a full General or to a Field Marshal, depending on the army in question.

While historically an army rank, General is also used in most air forces, although those based on the British Royal Air Force use Air Marshal instead, with Air Officer being the generic title. In most navies of the world, the equivalent rank is Admiral and the generic term is Flag Officer; however a noteworthy historical exception was the Cromwellian naval rank General at sea. In the Israeli Defence Forces there are no separate naval ranks and the Hebrew term Aluf can be both "General" and "Admiral".

The rank of General began appearing around the time of the organization of professional armies in the 17th century. At first, it was added as an adjective to existing names of ranks, yielding Colonel General, Captain General, Lieutenant General and Sergeant Major General. These titles were used to distinguish the ruler's most important officers and usually involved a certain amount of negotiation over precedence.

1 General ranks by seniority
2 General ranks by country
3 General equivalent ranks
4 Other General ranks
5 See also
6 External links

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General ranks by seniority

The following are the more common modern grades of General, listed by seniority. Not all countries use all these ranks, although the lowest four are common to many. The highest rank is only used in the United States. Grades of general are also not necessarily equal in all countries (for instance, in some countries Major General is the lowest general officer rank and may well be closer to Brigadier General in countries that have them).

General of the Armies

General

In some European and Commonwealth nations, the equivalent to Brigadier General is Brigadier, which is not considered by these armies to be a general officer rank, although it is generally considered to be equivalent to the rank of Brigadier General for comparative purposes. During World War I and World War II, the German Navy maintained a rank known as General Admiral, but this was a naval position unconnected to the regular land forces rank of General.

The rank of General may also be found commonly in fiction sources especially war dramas or science fiction settings.

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