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.