De-Constructing the French Wars: Napoleon as Anti-Strategist

Abstract

The Emperor Napoleon I is regarded as one of the greatest generals of all time and, as such, he has attracted an immense bibliography. In spite of this, there have been few studies of him as a strategist: instead, it is simply assumed that it was enough for the Emperor to have conducted an operation for it to have had a logical strategic goal. In this article, however, Napoleon is shown to have been primarily an opportunist, who was frequently guided by the needs of the moment and swayed from his course by circumstance, while it is further suggested that, even considered on their own merits, many of his decisions were faulty in the extreme.

Key Words:

• Napoleon
• Napoleonic Wars
• Strategy

Acknowledgement

A preliminary version of this paper was delivered at High Point University, North Carolina, USA, at the First Gunther Rothenberg Military History Seminar in November 2006, and the author would in consequence like to take this opportunity to express his thanks to both the University for its gracious hospitality and his fellow speakers for their most helpful comments.

Notes

¹Cf. D. Horward, Napoleonic Military History: A Bibliography (New York: Garland 1986), 1.

²In fairness to Gunther Rothenberg, The Napoleonic Wars (London: Cassell 1999), he does not subscribe to the idea that Napoleon was driven solely by the need to defeat a hostile England. On the contrary, on p. 210 a very different picture is hinted at: ‘To Napoleon, for whom moderation had no meaning and who looked for hegemony in Europe and perhaps beyond, war was not the ultimate step to be taken when diplomacy failed, it was the central element of his foreign policy.’ But at no point is the idea really developed or discussed.

³R.B. Mowat, The Diplomacy of Napoleon (London: Edward Arnold 1924), 5.

⁴The campaigns of 1800 are treated in monograph form in J.R. Arnold, Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon's Rise to Power (London: Pen & Sword 2005).

⁵Proclamation of Napoleon to the Grande Armée, 26 Oct. 1806, cit. J. David Markham (ed.), Imperial Glory: The Bulletins of Napoleon's Grande Armée, 1805–1814 (London: Greenhill Books 2003), 101.

⁶Such at least is the opinion of a variety of biographers of Napoleon. ‘It was only by stages that Napoleon achieved full power … Until the victory at Marengo, his power remained in doubt’, writes Jean Tulard [J. Tulard, Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour (London: Weidenfeld 1984), 81] while Lefebvre argues that ‘the retention and extension of his power’ depended on victory [G. Lefebvre, Napoleon: From 18 Brumaire to Tilsit (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1969), 92]. Then, more recently still, there is Englund: ‘Rarely did Napoleon need or profit more from a victory than the desperate one he pulled out of a hat in the afternoon of 14 June 1800 on a plain in Lombardy.’[S. Englund, Napoleon: A Political Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2004), 173]

⁷Lord Auckland to Lord Wellesley, 28 Aug. 1801, cit. Earl of Rosebery (ed.), The Wellesley Papers: The Life and Correspondence of Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley, 1760–1842 (London: Jenkins 1914), I, 143.

⁸Cit. J. Howard, Letters and Documents of Napoleon (London: Cresset Press 1961), I, 226. In fairness to Napoleon, this was not his only solution to the problem, in that he also suggested an attack on the British possession of Hanover and the vital port of Hamburg. However, as this would almost certainly have precipitated war with Prussia, it may safely be concluded that he knew that this proposal would never be accepted.

¹⁰C. de Rémusat, Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat, 1802–1808, ed. P. de Rémusat (Paris: Calmann-Levy 1884), I, 274.

¹¹A. de Staël, Considératns sur les Principaux Evénements de la Révolution Française (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy 1819), I, 207–8. The writer and saloniste was in Paris from 1797.

⁹F. Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, ed. E. Sanderson (London: Hutchinson 1903), 68.

¹²Cit. L. Junot, Mémoires de la Duchesse d'Abrantes, ed. G. Girard (Paris: Cité des Livres 1928), II, 138.

¹³Rémusat, Mémoires, I, 273.

¹⁴It is instructive here to consider British views of the invasion of Egypt. As Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Dundas called the operation ‘a great and masterly stroke, and, if successful, [one that] would be attended with very perilous consequences to the interests of this country’. Far away in India, however, the British Governor General, Lord Wellesley (then Lord Mornington) was far more sanguine: ‘I have just now learned, though from doubtful authority, that the French obtained possession of Alexandria in the month of June … If the French really have taken Alexandria, difficult as the attempt may be, I conclude that they will omit no exertion to assist Tipu [Sultan of Mysore in S. India], and, at least, will use every means to instigate him to war … My information, however, leads me to believe that, even without meeting any opposition in Egypt, the French could not reach India from thence in any numbers for a considerable time, and that, if a vigilant cruise of three or four ships could be established off the straits of Bab-el-Mandab, it would be nearly impracticable for any vessels which the French could collect in the Red Sea to force a passage.’ Cit. E. Ingram, Two Views of British India: the Private Correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798–1801 (Bath: Adams & Dart 1970), 47–8, 97–8.

¹⁵Of the expedition, Schroeder remarks that it was ‘fundamentally an aggressive impulse followed … without serious calculation of its feasibility and likely results’[P. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: OUP 1994), 179]. For an attempt to argue the case for simple miscalculation, cf. T.C.W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (London: Longman 1986), 179–83.

¹⁶That it was agreed that between the Foreign Minister and the General that Talleyrand should travel to Constantinople is clear enough. In the event, of course, no such journey transpired. Napoleon's apologists have sometimes argued that their hero was betrayed, but the reality is that the plan was wrecked by the Ottoman government's refusal to give way. Cf. J.C. Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt (London: Hamish Hamilton 1963), 18.

¹⁷A.F.L. de Viesse de Marmont, Mémoires du Maréchal Marmont, Duc de Raguse, de 1792 a 1841 (Paris: Perrotin 1857), I, 355. In Bonaparte in Egypt, Herold retails the claims put forward by Napoleon at the time as the basis for his support for the expedition, but evidently does not take them at face value. ‘One cannot help marvelling at this mixture of grandiose, faustian visions and utter poppycock.’ (16).

¹⁸Such, at least, is the version of Talleyrand's thinking that emerges from J.F. Bernard, Talleyrand: a Biography (London: History Book Club 1973), 201–3. As an alternative position, we might cite D. Cooper, Talleyrand (London: Jonathan Cape 1932), 102–3, which implies that the French foreign minister believed that Napoleon could win sufficient short-term glory in Egypt to fit him for the role of his ‘sword’ in France. For an attempt to argue the case for simple miscalculation, cf. Blanning, Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars, 179–83.

¹⁹Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 308–9.

²⁰Cf. C. Emsley, British Society and the French Wars, 1793–1815 (London: Macmillan 1979), 134–42.

²¹E. Heckscher, The Continental System: an Economic Interpretation[orig. in Swedish 1919] (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith 1964), 60–5.

²³P. O'Brien, ‘Public finance in the wars with France’, in H.T. Dickinson (ed.), Britain and the French Revolution (London: Macmillan 1989), 187.

²²G. Ellis, Napoleon (London: Longman 1997), 102.

²⁴Cit. P. Fleuriot de Langle (ed.), Napoleon at Saint Helena: Memoirs of General Bertrand, Grand Marshal of the Palace (London: Cassell 1953), 116–7.

²⁵H.T. Dickinson, ‘Popular Conservatism and Militant Loyalism, 1789–1815’, in Dickinson, Britain and the French Revolution, 124–5.

²⁷Englund, Napoleon, 324–5.

²⁶For an interesting discussion of the possibilities open to Napoleon in this respect, cf. A. Harvey, ‘European Attitudes to Britain during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era’, History 58/209 (Oct. 1978), 356–65.

²⁸For the impact of the Blockade on Holland, cf. S. Schama, Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813 (London: Fontana 1977), 561–93.

²⁹For an acute analysis of the decrees of 1810, cf. Tulard, Napoleon, 286–95.

³⁰For Cronin's belief in the satellite monarchies as defensive bastions, cf. V. Cronin, Napoleon (London: Penguin Books 1971), 318–9.

³¹For an unflattering view of the Bonaparte clan, cf. D. Seward, Napoleon's Family (London: Weidenfeld 1986).

³²Cf. P. Schroeder, ‘Napoleon's Foreign Policy: A Criminal Enterprise’, Consortium on Revolutionary Europe Proceedings 20 (1990), 104–11.

³³Cit. V. Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press 1951), 236.

³⁴The text of this letter may be consulted in H. Plon and J. Dumaine (eds.), C[orrespondance de] N[apoléon I publiée par ordre de l'Empereur Napoléon] (Paris: H. Plon 1858–69), XVI, 498–9.

³⁵For a sample of Napoleon's instructions to Decrès, cf. ibid., 492–3.

³⁶Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles, 268–305.

³⁷E. Driault, La Politique Orientale de Napoléon, Sébastiani et Gardane, 1806–1808 (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan 1904), 394.

³⁸M. Adams, Napoleon and Russia (London: Hambledon Continuum 2006), 210.

³⁹Cit. O. Williams (ed.), In the Wake of Napoleon: being the Memoirs of Ferdinand von Funck, Lieutenant-General in the Saxon Army and Adjutant General to the King of Saxony (London: John Lane/ The Bodley Head 1931), 167.

⁴⁰Cit. R. von Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1815 (New York: Scribner's 1880), 185–7.

⁴²Cit. Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, II, 158.

⁴³Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier (ed.), Mémoires du Chancelier Pasquier (Paris: Librairie Plon 1895–1914), I, 309.

⁴⁴M. Barrès (ed.), Memoirs of a French Napoleonic Officer: Jean-Baptiste Barrès, Chasseur of the Imperial Guard (London: Greenhill Books 1988), 119–20.

⁴¹J. Fouché, Memoirs of Joseph Fouché, Duke of Otranto, Minister of the General Police of France (London: William W. Gibbings 1892), 214.

⁴⁵Napoleon to Charles IV, 12 Oct. 1807, CN, XVI, 83.

⁴⁶Audiffret-Pasquier, Mémoires du Chancelier Pasquier, I, 323.

⁴⁷Napoleon to Louis Bonaparte, 3 April 1808, CN, XVI, 472.

⁴⁸For a recent interpretation of Napoleon's intervention in Spain, cf. C.J. Esdaile, The Peninsular War: A New History (London: Allen Lane 2002), 24–36, while a more detailed treatment may be found in A. Fugier, Napoléon et l'Espagne, 1799–1808 (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan 1930), II, 306–454.

⁴⁹Cit. Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, II, 181.

⁵⁰D. Dufour de Pradt, Histoire de l'ambassade dans le Grand Duché de Varsovie en 1812 (Paris: Pillet 1815), 14–7.

⁵¹Cit. J.C. Beugnot, Mémoires du Comte Beugnot, ancien ministre, 1783–1815, ed. A. Beugnot (Paris: E. Dentu 1868), I, 486.

⁵²G. Rothenberg, The Napoleonic Wars (London: Cassell 1999), 16, 212.