How Good Was Napoleon? (2007)
historytoday.com
historytoday.com
A British officer who doesn't think highly of Napoleon? This is my surprised face.
> This is implicit in Karl von Clausewitz’s celebrated but often misquoted (and still more often misunderstood) remark that ‘war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.’
Can this guy read German? Because that seems like an over-translation of the simple „Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln“ (title of section 24, chapter 1, book I of Vom Kriege).
I would also note that Napoleon failed in the end, but that he did quite well in the meanwhile. He continued the Revolutionary Wars, and so was doomed to face the forces of reaction, who would never ally with him with any kind of sincerity. It's possible that his military successes blinded him to the possibility of stability through diplomacy, but could he really have allied with the Habsburgs?
He also had to contend with an ascendant Britain, willing to exploit her insular position to its full advantage through her renewed Navy and her economic strength. But just a few years before the French Revolution, Britain had come close to losing it all; with no allies on the continent to distract France, she might have lost not just her colonies, but her dominant naval position, which was so essential in Napoleon's defeat.
Perhaps we British officers (I'm RN) appreciate our heroes a little more because they fought outnumbered yet achieved crushing victories, and they achieved their ultimate strategic objectives. Despite being aristocrats dealing with men who were often "scum" seemed to care far more their lives than the supposedly revolutionary Napoleon. Wellington was not only a great general but fought peace as a diplomat in Paris, and later as a Prime Minister. Wellington even sought out Napoleon's former mistresses and seduced them in Paris.
If you can fire quicky you can quickly win the dominace phase of the fire fight (to use a moderen term)
History is written by winners. Had Napoleon not gone to Russia, European feudal system would have fallen much earlier, and we'd be writing this in French.
Napoleon's contribution to history is not military feat. It's the civil code, education, equal opportunity, emancipation of jews, tearing down of ancien régime and giving birth to idea of nation states.
A French army is composed very differently from ours. The conscription calls out a share of every class — no matter whether your son or my son — all must march; but our friends — I may say it in this room — are the very scum of the earth. People talk of their enlisting from their fine military feeling — all stuff — no such thing. Some of our men enlist from having got bastard children — some for minor offences — many more for drink; but you can hardly conceive such a set brought together, and it really is wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are.
http://www.amazon.com/All-Kings-Shilling-Wellington-Commande...
- His military conquest speeded up the abolition of feudalism across europe. Civil code is put in place in occupied regions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italian_War_of_Independe...
Royal Navy even lost ships to Argentina At Falklands Wars. That would never happen to American Navy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#Sinking_of_HMS_Sh...
Britain's problem is the pure amount of hypocrisy. How hard is it to admit we are not number one any more and buckle down and do some real work.
Wow, you can get more British than suggesting your country's prowess by how your general allegedly defeated his enemy in the battlefield and in bed, but I'm guessing it would require your doing that while drinking tea on the top of the Big Ben, with a chorus singing "God Save the Queen" in the background.
Bonus Wikipedia article, not all the great British are remembered as they should: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias
PD: Trafalgar would be different if the French-Spanish fleet would be lead by Churruca or by Gravina
Britain was the only country that could afford to keep fighting with an XVIIth century style professional army, of a necessarily limited size (and kept doing so until WWI). The other belligerents went to French-style conscript armies, which made Napoleon's advantage much smaller over time.
As for "fought outnumbered yet achieved crushing victories", it's worth remembering that Britain had allies nearly throughout the war: Portuguese and Spanish during most of the Peninsular War; Germans (and Dutch) at Waterloo, and most of the time the Russians and Austrians fighting the French with whatever success to the east.
I'm just getting stuck into Robert's "Napoleon the Great", my Christmas present to myself!
At Austerlitz, Britain paid money for each dead Russian soldier. English agents were busy counting the dead making sure his majestry's money is well spent while French medics trying to save wounded from both side. Austrian emperor Francis allegedly said 'English are merchants of human flesh.
Also, Britain routinely paid other monarchies to have them send their soldiers. They hired Germans to fight against American independence. George Washington's famous first victory was crossing the Delaware river and surprise attacked what were actual German legions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessian_%28soldiers%29#American...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_crossing_...
Can you provide more information on this?
As for being outnumbered, the British paid lots of other people to fight Napoleon, and they outnumbered him substantially. (It's a bit like the US claiming to be fighting long odds today.)
Napoleon was very good at tactics, grand tactics ("strategy" in the US), and even logistics, but he was not good enough at strategy to win. As many have pointed out, the odds were stacked against him because he represented the Devil in terms of the ideas he and the French Empire espoused, and despite his defeat the ideas won.
Ideology aside, most importantly, Napoleon represented a dominant power in Europe which Britain -- at the time the world's only real superpower -- implacably opposed for strategic reasons (unified Europe means Britain no longer top nation).
The thing that really riles up the British about Napoleon is that his influence and fame are so wide relative to that of Wellington, who was if anything a better tactician. Even in this article the emphasis on the Russian campaign for Napoleon's defeat probably irks those who follow Wellington. Wellington defeated the French in India, securing Britain's economic advantages, and then turned Spain into a bloody quagmire. He won every battle he fought, usually with few casualties on his side.
Oh, and he is the one who finally beat Napoleon, despite being outnumbered.
Here's a nice comparison of the two:
I am sure that Wellington was a good guy, but that "article" is garbage. Some information is useful despite being obviously biased, but this is just dreck. Wellington was physically fit, and Napoleon wasn't? This must obviously have been a decisive factor; it's good the right man won. I am surprised not to read a discussion of their favorite colors.
I am sure that you can pick apart a global conflict spanning (at least) two decades, with many reverses and triumphs by both sides, to show that one side and one hero was destined to win, the other side's defeat inevitable. I am less convinced that this is a good thing to do, and more skeptical that your hero does not have the reputation he deserves.
I agree completely. Napoleon's defeat seems much less inevitable than, say, the Confederacy's or Imperial Japan's in their respective wars. The point is, however, that if one wants to claim Napoleon was great, one needs to make the challenges he faced seem larger, not smaller, and so his strategic "genius" must rest on the proposition that his strategic problem was insurmountable. I am willing to concede that it may have been, but even so, I think Wellington was the more effective battlefield commander (that said, Napoleon was running an army and an empire, and doing a lot of delegation; Wellington not so much).
His victory at Austerlitz stands as one of the great military achievements and best executed battles in history. Literally a textbook example of movement, timing and coordination. The common perception is that after Napoleon returned from Elba he lost much of his strategic and tactical flair, throwing his men into meat grinders. This is mostly true, but most of the opposing generals also had very high casualty rates. Napoleonic warfare was dominated by the Fog of War, they had no satellites or drones to help them plan and maneuver. Napoleon had a sixth sense for visualizing a battle that unfortunately came and went. On his good days he was better than many who have ever lived. On most days, he was simply average. That's as much as most of us could ask for, and it was enough to dominate a continent at the time.
History is filled with intelligent and technically capable generals, but only a few who had a style that set them apart. Hannibal and Robert E. Lee come easily to mind, along with others. Napoleon's genius of movement and logistics were groundbreaking, and the lessons apply to more than warfare. He was the original "Move fast and break things". He taught military history that being faster and better organized was enough to build a seemingly unstoppable snow ball effect of victories. His downfall instructs that even the best preparation cannot defeat a dangerous and unpredictable shifting landscape.
the gereral consensus is that the great captains are Ceaser, Hannibal Alexander, Churcill (John not Winston) Wellington and Napoleon.
BTW Carthage was a Colony so not realy non european in that sense.
Some others, often overlooked from a Western viewpoint, would be Subutai, Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), Belisarius, Zhukov, and Suleiman I. There are more.
Arguably Marius and Sulla were the equal, if not better than, Caesar. And Pompey was no slouch either. And another great Roman general was Scipio.
Some more modern generals not mentioned are Fredrick the Great and Gustavus Adolphus, plus Rommel.
One of Hitler's mistakes* was to believe he was a good general. Stalin at least had the good sense to let his generals get on with it.
* Thankfully.
Unlikely to actually be true but a cute story.
Some would add Lee (though personally, I think that is for political/tribal reasons more than anything else... but I do acknowledge than many have a high opinion of the man, especially when it came to cavalry.) - but even those of us who sympathize with the north generally don't rate Grant much above 'competent enough' - he got the job done, but nobody is going to compare him to Caesar or Napoleon.
Another great read is Rifleman Dodd, also known as Death to the French, the story of a single British rifleman causing havoc to french forces in Spain[2]. It gives you an interesting perspective how much the french were hated outside of France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadier_Gerard
It's the fictional accounts of a dashing and arrogant cavalry officer in Napoleon's army. You can tell Doyle enjoys lampooning some French military stereotypes but there's also some great adventures along the way. I think it would make a great movie with the right director and cast.
Even if there are some decent points made it will take a lot more than that to argue that he wasn't one of the great battlefield commanders.
As is usual with the conquer-the-world types, not knowing when to stop was Napoleon's downfall. Hitler made the same mistake - taking on both Britain and Russia at the same time.
He talks a lot about the different levels of war (strategic, operational, tactical) but more, talks about how war evolved over time. In particular how maneuver doctrine is superior to firepower doctrine is superior to manpower doctrine. These all are, to a certain extent, trumped by guerrilla warfare by non-state forces. Lind calls this fourth generation warfare.
Here's an archive of some of his essays (chronological from the bottom up):
Napoleon was sufficient to resuscitate the Spanish Inquisition. It is a Napoleon-sized mess in itself, but "Goya's Ghosts" at least brushes onto this - complete with a demonstration of the use of the garotte.
But at least we had... Bismarck...
Its a pity that Kaiser wilhelm did not take after his father who wanted a consitutional democarcy closer to the UK's system.
The American army in 1812 would have been no match for Wellington (plus a coalition of european states who wanted ther american colonys back) even the very high quality but small US navy would have not helped that much.
Your argument seems to be coming from the historical revisionism that Hofschröer puts forward, about how Waterloo was somehow a German victory and Wellington simply took the credit.
It was neither, it was a coalition victory by both Wellington and Blücher in close cooperation. Close cooperation by the standards of the day that is, in personal meetings and messages conveyed on horse-back.
Neither knew from which direction Napoleon would attack, and when he did he took both Blücher and Wellington by surprise. Moving from the south-west he defeated Blücher at Ligny, whilst pushing his left wing under Ney to block Wellington to the north at Quatre Bras. Arguably Napoleon's biggest mistake was not to make sure he had decisively beaten Blücher at Ligny.
Blücher withdrew to reorganise, and Wellington pulled back north along the Brussels road to Waterloo. Crucially Blücher also withdrew northwards, parallel to the French advance, and Wellington was well aware of this, the French not.
The rest is history. Wellington's army held the field all day, the Prussians arrived on the French right in the late afternoon, and with Napoleon's attacks exhausted, the French army routed.
To quote Wellington himself written immediately after the battle "I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them"
Wellington has always reserved the option to retreat from the sea. That's why he left 10000+ reserve to cover the retreat path in case things go wrong at Waterloo. From Prussian point of view 1) they just lost a battle badly at Ligny 2) Wellington said he'd come but he didn't 3) Wellington could escape from sea in which case Prussians will surely be crushed facing French alone. Wellington does deserve credit but I would say Blücher's courage to trust his teammate and meet Wellington at Waterloo is more respectable. It's not a overstatement that it's a German victory.
Napoleon's biggest mistake is giving his marshals wrong tasks. He left his best marshal Davout in Paris while hoping Grouchy who just got promoted marshal to carry the weight to chase down Blücher. Grouchy is OK with carrying out orders but not so great at reacting to situation. Despite Gérard repeated asking to 'march to the sound of the guns', he decided to follow previous order and chase Prussians in the wrong direction. Although he didn't have too much of a choice, Davout is the only one whose loyalty is questionable. He didn't want what happened at Fontainebleau to repeat so he had to keep Davout at home. And then he used Soult for staff work who did a very sloppy job. The lack of information and misinformation may have well cost the battle.
Wellington said he'd come if he wasn't attacked himself, but he didn't because he was attacked. That's rather different than what you said.
[0] I loved Bob Ross.
[1] I originally had "Picasso" but the styles were too disparate for the point. Still, props to @krapp for the ERB link.
I can't resist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGN5xaQkFk0
I don't believe that one bit.
Also, I disagree with your assertion that artisans should avoid learning the fundamentals of their craft, or that doing so somehow robs the work of its "voice".
It reminds me of a fourteen-year-old guitarist who doesn't see the need to learn scales or music theory. "I'm not going to be some cookie-cutter musician, man. My music is going to be original and unique!"
This article would be much better if it had gone through an editing phase or two.
Scales can almost be self-learned and a good chunk of rock musicians don't know anything about music theory, and can't read music. Many excellent musicians and artists are autodidacts.
There was nothing wrong with the article as regards the "passive voice" and like most people who moan about the passive voice you likely don't understand what it is: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922
Mentioning that hilariously bad app Hemingway makes it worse. Running Hemingway through hemingway is fun - it gets mutilated.
(And the hemingway app is pretty crappy as far as natural language processing goes.)