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The Napoleonic Wars in Global Perspective

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The Napoleonic Wars in Global Perspective THE NAPOLEONIC WARS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Jeremy Black Why bother with Napoleon?1 Recently presented as a key figure in the birth of modern warfare,2 in fact he was a failure, not only in hindsight but also in his own lifetime. If there was no perverted Götteradämmerung equivalent to the Berlin bunker of 1945, Napoleon discovered hell in his own terms, impotent, bar in his anger, on an isolated island in the storm- tossed South Atlantic. As a military figure, he failed totally. There was no equivalent to the recovery after the loss of the capital seen with Frederick the Great (Berlin in 1760) or with the Americans, first in the War of Independence (Philadelphia in 1777), and then in the War of 1812 (Washington in 1814). Instead, Napoleon’s return to power in 1815, the Hundred Days, proved short-lived and left France more conclusively defeated as well as occu- pied. In addition, Waterloo was a total defeat for the main field army under Napoleon’s command such as had not happened hitherto, even when he was overcome in 1814: there was no comparable field engage- ment in 1812 to accompany the strategic and operational defeat of the invasion of Russia. Furthermore, Napoleon coped far worse with failure than Louis XIV or Louis XV had done. Louis XIV’s armies had been repeatedly defeated in 1704–9, but the French frontiers largely held. The major fortress of Lille was lost to John, Duke of Marlborough in 1708, after a lengthy siege, but there was no Allied march on Paris and the French were able to fight on. Indeed, they did so with considerable success in the last campaign of the war, inflicting serious defeats on their German opponents in 1714. Similarly, in 1743 (Dettingen), 1757 (Rossbach), and 1759 (Minden), under Louis XV, the French suffered serious blows in Germany, but, on each occasion, were able to limit exploitation by their opponents. Napoleon, in contrast, was not able to do so; while the respective political consequences of 1 I have benefited greatly from the thoughtful advice and encouragement of Rick Schneid on an earlier version. 2 D. Bell, The First Total War. Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007). 150 jeremy black military failure indicated the importance of a grounding of rulership in legitimacy. Despite his claims, Napoleon’s lack of political legitimacy ensured that his opponents were able to force decisive defeat on him. Why then was Napoleon for so long the focus of attention among mili- tary commentators, both intellectual and popular: from theorists, via teachers and war-gamers, to re-enactors? Why study failure in short? This question recurs when we think about the Germans in the First and Second World Wars and again, in part, reflects political factors, but also a failure to appreciate central aspects of military history. Several reasons offer themselves for the focus on Napoleon, some his- torical and some directly relevant today. To list these reasons does not imply any prioritization, and readers are welcome to provide their own. As far as historical factors are concerned, need and opportunity came foremost. Need is a reflection of Napoleon’s repeated success in the 1790s and 1800s, and the wish among others to understand the basis of this suc- cess in order to try to repeat it or to know how best to avoid suffering from its repetition. In short, there was a clear tasking. This tasking appeared more relevant because the European great power system did not change substantially for several decades after Waterloo. Indeed, France was to find itself at war, separately, with Russia, Austria and Prussia, its leading Continental opponents in 1813–14, within fifty-five years of the fall of Napoleon, albeit separately; while Palmerston’s anxie- ties in the 1850s and 1860s about the possibility of a steamship-borne French invasion of England are notable. The battlefields in the wars with Austria and Prussia, those of northern Italy and eastern France, were those fought over under Napoleon. So Napoleon seemed relevant, and particu- larly so because weaponry changed relatively little in the 1820s and 1830s, while operational and strategic goals remained similar. Even after the nature of weaponry altered, with the development of breech-loaders, goals did not change. There was also the question of opportunity, not only because of the longevity of combatants in command positions, not least Soult and Wellington. Furthermore, the works of Clausewitz and, even more, Jomini provided a ready fixing of lessons from the period. The Swiss-born Jomini (1779–1869) rose into French service through the army of the Helvetic Republic and became Chief of Staff to Marshal Ney. He subsequently served in the Russian army. Jomini’s influential works, which included the Traité des Grandes Opérations Militaires (1804–11) and the Précis de l’Art de la Guerre (1838), sought to find logical principles at work in warfare, which was seen as having timeless essential characteristics, and, in particular, to .
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