The Austrian War of 1805
The Conquest of Prussia and the
Polish Campaign
The Austrian War of 1809
The Russian War of 1812
The German War of Liberation - The
Battle of the Nations
Campaign in France 1814
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No military career has been examined more often and more freely than
that of Napoleon. Fortunately the industry and ability of the military history
section of the French General Staff have rendered available, by the
publication of the original orders issued during the course of his
campaigns, a mass of information which, taken in conjunction with his
own voluminous correspondence, renders it possible to trace the growth
of his military genius with a reasonable approach to accuracy. Formerly
we could only watch the evolution of his powers of organization and the
purely psychic gifts of resolution and command. The actual working of
his mind towards that strategic and tactical ascendancy that rendered
his presence on the battlefield, according to the testimony of his
opponents, equal to a reinforcement of 40,000 men, was entirely indiscernible.
The history of his youth reveals no special predilection for the
military service, the bent of his mind was political far more than
military, but unlike the politicians of his epoch he consistently
applied scientific and mathematical methods to his theories, and desired
above all things a knowledge of facts in their true relation to one
another. His early military education was the best and most practical
then attainable, primarily because he had the good fortune to come under
the influence of men of exceptional ability Baron du Keile, Bois Roger
and others. From them he derived a sound knowledge of artillery and
fortification, and particularly of mountain warfare, which latter was
destined to prove of inestimable service to him in his first campaigns
of I794 - 95 and 1796. In these, as well as in his most dramatic success
of Marengo in 1800, we can discern no trace of strategical innovation.
He was simply a master of the methods of his time. Ceaseless industry,
energy and conspicuous personal gallantry were the principal factors of
his brilliant victories, and even in 1805 at Ulm and Austerlitz it was
still the excellence of the tactical instrument, the army, which the
Revolution had bequeathed to him that essentially produced the results.
Meanwhile the mathematical mind, with its craving for accurate data
on which to found its plans (the most difficult of all to obtain under
the conditions of warfare), had been searching for expedients which
might serve him to better purpose, and in 1805 he had recourse to the
cavalry screen in the hope of such results, This proved a palliation of
his difficulty, but not a solution. Cavalry can only observe, it cannot
hold. The facts as to the position of an opponent accurately observed and
correctly reported at a given moment, afford no reliable guarantee of
his position 48 hours later, when the orders based on this information enter upon execution. This can only be calculated on the
ground of
reasonable probability as to what it may be to the best interest of the
adversary to attempt. But what may seem to a Napoleon the best course is
not necessarily the one that suggests itself to a mediocre mind, and the
greater the gulf which separate the two minds the greater the uncertainty which must prevail on the
side of the abler commander.
A partial explanation of this phenomenon may perhaps be found in the
economy of nervous energy his strategical method ensured to him.
Marching always ready to fight wherever his enemy might stand or move
to meet him, his mind was relieved from all the hesitations which
necessarily arise in men ‘less confident in the security of their
designs. Hence, when on the battlefield the changing course of events
left his antagonists mentally exhausted, he was able to face them with
will power neither bound nor broken. But this only explains a portion of
the mystery that surrounds him, and which will make the study of his
career the most fascinating to the military student of all times. Amongst all the great captains of history,
he stands alone. Both, in his powers of organization and the mastery
of the tactical potentialities of the weapons of their day, was immeasurably ahead of
his times, and both also understood to the full
the strategic art of binding and restraining the independent will power
of their opponents.
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