Napoleon as a Military Commander:
Uploaded by sharmaine on Mar 23, 2007
Napoleon as a Military Commander:
the Limitations of Genius
Peter J. Dean BA(Hons) Dip Ed.
Napoleon was one of the greatest military minds in the history of warfare. He expanded the conquests of France from her revolutionary borders to that of an Empire that stretched from Spain to the steppes of Russia. Napoleon's genius lay not in revolutionizing of warfare itself, but in the refinement of existing means. He did not propose any drastic changes in tactics nor invent a new method of waging warfare, instead he excelled at the tactical handling of the armies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Napoleon established himself as a great leader of men during the revolutionary period with the siege of Toulon and his triumphs in Italy in 1796. These talents were refined and reached their height during the battles of Ulm, Austerlitz and Jena in the period of 1805-1806. Towards the end of the Empire the weaknesses of Napoleon as a military commander became more evident. His insistence on the micro management of the army and the awarding of Marshal batons to those who excelled under his leadership, but who possessed no great talent for individual command, worked to his determent. The strategic failures of the decisions to invade Spain and Russia and the inability to keep the other major European powers divided proved disastrous. The increasing size and static nature of armies and the increasingly murderous nature of warfare during the latter part of the Empire revealed Napoleon's in ability to adapt to the changing shape of war. It is in the light of his triumphs and later failures that Napoleon's traditional reputation as a great military leader must be judged.
Historiographical interpretations of Napoleon's military abilities have under gone several changes. In his epic work The Campaigns of Napoleon David Chandler accurately portrays how the "wheel has turned full cycle several times" as to the impressions of Napoleon's abilities. He had been regarded from at best a "talented thug", to a military genius. General James Marshal-Cornwall, a contemporary of Chandler, regards Napoleon as "...a master of the conduct of war; he was the supreme craftsman of his trade, who new how to make to most effective, though not the most economical use of the tools and techniques which he found ready to his hand." Like Chandler he regards Napoleon's military genius as stemming from his use of the 'tools at hand'...