Was Napoleon really a tactical genius or was he just lucky?

[Saphroneth]

First if I didn't knew about howitzers during the NW I would hardly be speaking about the topic, also they were mostly used as a anti-infantry weapon not for counter battery fire.

Then I'm not sure why you brought them up:

Still given that no power during the wars used, or dreamt about, rife cannons or howitzers I can't see why he would invest in it.

Unless you mean specifically rifled cannon or rifled howitzers as a thing nobody's dreaming about. (It's also arguably inaccurate, as Captain Reichenbach's first rifled cannon was 1816.)
It seems like your view of the purpose of shrapnel shot is exactly bckwards to the real usage - it's an anti-infantry weapon, not a counter-battery one... unless I'm misreading you?

Second the Shrapnel shot had been a secret of the British artillery, the French tried to copy it but never managed to achieve it during the war.

Do you have a citation about their trying to copy it?

 

[James XI]

Modern warfare is so technologically driven that people tend to get tunnel vision with that perspective, but it wasn't really a factor in Napoleon's defeat. I mean, Alexander didn't develop horse-archers...because there was no real need. If it's not broken, don't fix it, and Napoleon's armies were damn near unbeatable when properly lead. People, especially Cornwell fans, will mention rifles and Spain...but those same factors were in play when he personally went to Spain, and he cleaned up as per.

 

[Karolus Rex]

Then I'm not sure why you brought them up:



Unless you mean specifically rifled cannon or rifled howitzers as a thing nobody's dreaming about. (It's also arguably inaccurate, as Captain Reichenbach's first rifled cannon was 1816.)
It seems like your view of the purpose of shrapnel shot is exactly bckwards to the real usage - it's an anti-infantry weapon, not a counter-battery one... unless I'm misreading you?

I brought up the howitzer because in France no one had been thinking about rifle cannons or howitzers which explains why they didn't invested on them.

Relating to anti infantry I'm referihg to the howitzers in general (Napoleon wrote that those were the best weapons to dislodge infantry in villages, shatter redoubts, etc...)not the shrapnel shot.

Do you have a citation about their trying to copy it?

Not at hand right now. I read that years ago but I shall try to find the citations, and I PM it.

 

[Karolus Rex]

Modern warfare is so technologically driven that people tend to get tunnel vision with that perspective, but it wasn't really a factor in Napoleon's defeat. I mean, Alexander didn't develop horse-archers...because there was no real need. If it's not broken, don't fix it, and Napoleon's armies were damn near unbeatable when properly lead. People, especially Cornwell fans, will mention rifles and Spain...but those same factors were in play when he personally went to Spain, and he cleaned up as per.

I like Cornwell has a write but his books are basically the noble brits liberating the papists from the bad Frogs and from time to time the useless Spanish make a cameo to be useless and stupid and the Portuguese sometimes, two times, show up to protect their own country.

 

[James XI]

I like Cornwell has a write but his books are basically the noble brits liberating the papists from the bad Frogs and from time to time the useless Spanish make a cameo to be useless and stupid and the Portuguese sometimes, two times, show up to protect their own country.

I wouldn't say 'noble'...more 'gritty', but otherwise agree. I love his books, but there's no doubt the Brits are pretty much always the plucky heroes who triumph against the odds, and their enemies the arrogant supremely gifted favourites...which is why the only Napoleonic battle he covers is his one loss to the Brits, and the Hundred Year books kinda leave off the second half.

 

[Saphroneth]

I brought up the howitzer because in France no one had been thinking about rifle cannons or howitzers which explains why they didn't invested on them.

And I didn't say they should, or that anyone should. It seems kind of a strawman?

 

[Karolus Rex]

And I didn't say they should, or that anyone should. It seems kind of a strawman?

And again I missunderstand something during a online discussion...apologies Saphroneth I got the idea that you were saying that doing it was obvious.

 

[longsword14]

First if I didn't knew about howitzers during the NW I would hardly be speaking about the topic, also they were mostly used as a anti-infantry weapon not for counter battery fire. Second the Shrapnel shot had been a secret of the British artillery, the French tried to copy it but never managed to achieve it during the war. I just had never heard it been called Spherical shot.

And exploding shot under British employ did not have have a very high percentage of correct explosion either. Where do posters get the idea that primitive rifles and shells were significant enough to build and equip troops in great numbers ?, because without doing the latter they are just toys.
Also, french light companies were quite capable of cutting down rifle armed men.

 

[longsword14]

Which is why I think that the French light inf defeats are more related to the more training that the Prussian, British and Portuguese (we used the brit system of training) light had. The rifle in itself wouldn't give a significant advantage to one side because on skirmish it would be used as a smoothbore, it was the faster fire rate and better accuracy that won those engagements.

Actually neither. Better fire control and good defensive deployment did. It is often stated that British troops held greater firing capacity over their contemporaries, but there are no real proofs.
By putting French combined arms off in certain terrain and suddenly delivering both fire and shock, British troops held quite well. In these engagements rifle armed British troops were supposed to mask the presence of the whole line troops behind them. French conscripts unable to deploy got into a pickle when they are led to expect a retreating enemy and slam into new lines.
What people seem to ignore that despite this French light troops put a heck lot of casualties on the British skirmish screen before the latter went back. Look at the campaign in Flanders, French lights put such a high rate of fire (which is something I do not see mentioned often, that well trained voltiguer units should have a greater capacity to fire and use it to skirmish) that there was no point to rifle 'supremacy'.

 

[Matteo]

The best argument I ever heard for Julius Caesar came from Dan Carlin in one of his "Hardcore History" podcasts. Its a great point. He said that with almost every other general or conqueror you can have a debate about whether it was their genius or some inferior aspect of the opponent. Lagging technology, inferior tactics, bad training, relative number of troops, whatever. Lee versus Grant. Zhukov versus Manstein. Rommel versus Montgomery. With Caesar, there are no questions during the civil war. He was fighting Roman troops with the same training, same tactics, same weaponry, and same resources. Caesar was evenly matched in just about every regard and won. YMMV.

I agree with your argument whose author I had not read but which I had figured out by myself. And however you are still underestimating Caesar's achievement.

Caesar had far less resources than his opponents when the civil war began. He could just count on the resources of Gauls while Pompey and the optimates controlled all the other provinces and the fleet. This is why he had to fight for 4 years all over the empire (in Spain, Greece, Asia, Egypt, Africa, and Spain again).

Almost nobody thought Caesar could won this civil war because of his huge disadvantage in resources. And however he did win although he avoided total collapse by an inch when he was defeated by Pompey at the battle of Dyrrachium.

 

[Matteo]

Napoleon obviously was a tactical genius. Just ask present military officers in war colleges.

He probably was a much better tactician than strategist.

The mistakes he made, some of which were fatal to him in the long run, derived from his flaws as a diplomat and as a political leader, more than as a strategist.

The fact that he also was a head of State drove him to make fatal decisions as a strategist.

Taking direct control of Spain was a strategic nonsense.

Bullying the continental powers he had defeated without matching his words with action was a fatal mistake.

Being in such a State of denial for 3 years regarding Russia and Alexander I was a fatal mistake. Not sticking to his original war plan of a 2 year long russian campaign and opting for the nonsensical plan of chasing the russian army as far as Moscow was the most fatal of his mistakes.

And however Napoleon definitly that he was a tactical genius in 1813 during his campaign against the 6th coalition. He almost won the campaign at Dresden although fighting with a massive disadvantage.

Like Hannibal, Napoleon belonged to the category of tactical geniuses who made fatal political and strategic mistakes.

 

[David T]

General Sarrail, exasperated by the difficulties of coalition warfare during World War I, is supposed to have said "Napoleon was not a great general--he only had to fight coalitions!"

"To which Napoleon could have replied, as he did to one of his ministers 'It is evident that you were not at Wagram,' where the Austrians alone were formidable opponents. Up to 1796 none of the French generals had been able to exploit the possibilities of offensive warfare on the same scale as Napoleon, and no general of his epoch succeeded in doing so..." https://books.google.com/books?id=mfV7qQ_oiVEC&pg=PA311

 

[RodentRevolution]

Napoleon obviously was a tactical genius. Just ask present military officers in war colleges.

Actually I strongly suspect that while admiration for his operational art would be high,that is the manoeuvre of formations of division through to field army size but in Napoleon's case mostly the use of corps sized formations which was a French invention he exploited to the maximum, I would actually suggest that praise for his tactical or battlefield performance is in fact more mixed. This is the same man who sent mounted Polish Lancers to take a hill with dug in defenders do recall.

I think some people are slightly missing the point when technology is brought up. The technology and operational art and tactics and strategy and even the logistics organisation of the Napoleonic era were not fixed, they developed as the era progressed. However after being off to a flying start Napoleon became progressively less the innovator and more the conservator of past methods. This stood him and France badly as Austria and Prussia and even Russia managed to reform their armies.

At Jena Napoleon crushed a Prussian army and that was basically that, at Ligny a Prussian army though defeated retreated, rallied and then marched again to re-engage. An earlier Napoleon might have adapted to the changed circumstances but by this stage we see the same Napoleon who had failed to adapt to the post 1812 resurgence of his enemies flounder. Of course part of the problem here is operational movement, his forces were being out-road marched by the Prussians but part was tactical Napoleon had decided on a frontal assault to break the British and Allied formations facing him which played as much to British defensive strengths as his own. In effect Napoleon, Napoleoned himself, fixed in place he became the target for multiple converging corps.

Which was where his genius had once lay, that bait, fix and swarm manoeuvre had once been the Emperor's signature move on the offensive as well as the defensive. On the battlefield his personal performance was always somewhat more mixed, several time subordinate commanders had to get him out of trouble. Flaws in his strategy have been much noted above. So actually I would suggest Napoleon while certainly not a dunce as a battlefield commander was only truly a genius at the operational level, the last flowering of which was his skilful defence of Paris in the 1814 campaign where his actions are often underrated because they ended in defeat despite forestalling multiple armies each of which was individually stronger than his own.

 

[Yanez de Gomera]

Napoleon was a giant of military thought and application, exploiting at the maximum the French corps system, bringing cavalry back to its role as a decisive shock troop, not to speak about his use of artillery. His ability in operational warfare and his capabilities to keep replenishing the ranks of his armies are unparalleled.

His faults are strategic (underestimating the Iberian quagmire, having a suicidal Russian campaign), tied with his lack of understanding of how naval warfare should be conducted and especially political/diplomatical:
He should either have avoided the continental block and really invested on his austrian alliance and at least neutrality from Rissia to balance the British, eventually finding some sort of compromise with them or he should have exploited to the maximum the principle of nationality, making Italy and Poland at least loyal allies and utterly destroying and dismembering the Austrian empire. That would leave Germany however, which would obviously be way to dangerous to allow as a national state, but still it would have been the only true chance for France to really dominate Europe, if only as primus inter pares of some proto EU and not as imperial overlord à la Roman Empire. It is almost like he was both too revolutionary and too conservative for his times.

Maybe embracing rifles and investing in research on shrapnel shells could have slightly changed his odds, but it would not have solved his geostrategical situation.

He was also lucky in some instances, but fortuna audentes iuvat and he himself said to prefer lucky generals to skilled ones...

 

[RyuDrago]

Napoleon was able, but had also luck.

Anyway, one of his abilities was to make good use of his luck. Luck is useless if you don't know how to exploit it.

 

[Karolus Rex]

And exploding shot under British employ did not have have a very high percentage of correct explosion either. Where do posters get the idea that primitive rifles and shells were significant enough to build and equip troops in great numbers ?, because without doing the latter they are just toys.
Also, french light companies were quite capable of cutting down rifle armed men.

Napoleon on his quote about howitzers specifies that they are to be used in mass, to achieve a greater effect.

Relating to your question, the British had the 95th rifles and the 60th of Foot, the Royal Americans, equipped with rifles; the Portuguese had one company in every Caçador Battalion equipped with rifles, considering that there were 12 Battalions you have 12 companies; the Prussians had the Schlesisches Schützen Bataillon, the Volunteers Jägers, the Saxon Jäger Battalion, Saxon 'Volunteer Banners' and jäger company of Russo-German Legion and three Jäger regiments. The only ones that used rifles expensively were the Prussians and those didn't cared if a soldier was using a private hunting rifle or one made by the Government.

Actually neither. Better fire control and good defensive deployment did. It is often stated that British troops held greater firing capacity over their contemporaries, but there are no real proofs.
By putting French combined arms off in certain terrain and suddenly delivering both fire and shock, British troops held quite well. In these engagements rifle armed British troops were supposed to mask the presence of the whole line troops behind them. French conscripts unable to deploy got into a pickle when they are led to expect a retreating enemy and slam into new lines.
What people seem to ignore that despite this French light troops put a heck lot of casualties on the British skirmish screen before the latter went back. Look at the campaign in Flanders, French lights put such a high rate of fire (which is something I do not see mentioned often, that well trained voltiguer units should have a greater capacity to fire and use it to skirmish) that there was no point to rifle 'supremacy'.

I was referring to the engagements during the Peninsular War and the German campaign of 1813-1814. On the first the French soldier sent there usually were either fresh conscripts or second line regiments, which explains why the French were losing the skirmish engagements as when both forces are green the training was the decisive factor but had time goes on and the Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish light units get experience while constantly fighting against mostly conscripts. Napoleon's Spanish Campaign, the Coruña Campaign, shows that the French veterans were more than enough against anyone.

The War of the Fourth Coalition showed the same and it was only after the Prussians had experience with Jäger tactics in Russia, and after the French lost their best men in Russia, that you see the French light inf loosing more and more engagements.

Best Quote I have from this period is from 1814 from a French Soldier when questioned on why he hadn't fired his musket "I would like to fire it, and fight for the Emperor, but I was never thought on how to fire a musket."

 

[Redbeard]

Napoleon indeed was a great innovator. Not so much in introducing new gadgets like muzzle loaded rifles, rockets or other examples of immature sillyness taken to the battlefield, but by the way he organized his efforts. The Armycorps as fielded by Napoleon was in itself a huge innovation influencing just about all aspects of warfare and Napoleon was the person who could utilise it much better than anyone else.

Not just in the limited engegement where two bodies of men maneouvre and finally meet but much more with armies too big to just march along in a line. The perfected Armycorps system made it practically possible to march separately and strike together - especially if you had the "kill sense" of Napoleon.

We can find a lot of generals who were excellent with a few Armycorps, incl. Napoleon, but very few had any clue about leading the very big armies. IMHO Archduke Charles and Schwarzenberg/Radetzky were closest among contemporaries, but still far behind.

Napoleon also was superb in utilising "combined arms" on all levels on the battlefield. He of course also here built on doctrines etc. from earlier, but perfected the combination of firepower and movement to a degree never seen before. After 1809 the quality of the French troops generally declined but it is impressive how much fighting power he still got out of recruits in column (movement)with superbly deployed artillery (firepower). Before Napoleon artillery was mainly a siege tool and its field components few and weak. After Napoleon it was the "Queen of the battlefield".

And Wellington then?

Well, he sure was a brilliant tactician who very well understood how to best utilise his 18th century style British troops in a sideshow campaign, but also having a very helpful enemy usually choosing to charge headlessly into the musketfire and by not having to meet Napoleon himself until Napoleon and his army was only a shadow of their former glory (and helped by the charge of the (Prussian) cavalry). Had we placed Wellington and British troops at Jena/Auerstadt instead of Prussians the French would have been just as successful as in the OTL battle(s).

Anyway Wellington never had to command any of those huge offensive campaigns like 1805, 1806/07, 1809, 1812 and 1813 where Napoleon could not just wait for the enemy to strike but had to force the enemy to taking engagement. The campaigns from 1805-1809 IMHO belong in the "Global and eternal hall of fame of warfare". Already by 1809 his enemies had improved a lot and his own troops declined and in 1812 you could add severe strategic overreach and King Frost fighting you. In the 1813 spring campaign he still acomplished with an army of mainly schoolboys in greatcoats to give the allies a bloody nose.

1813 autumn campaign IMHO was THE decisive campaign of the Napoleonic wars. Not only could the allied troops now match the French at tactical and operational level (almost identical organisation) but had also finally gained a sound strategic doctrine: "Avoid Napoleon himself for as long as possible but utilise any chance to beat up his subordinate commanders!" If that doesn't count for Napoleon as a commander!

 

[RPW@Cy]

I like Cornwell has a write but his books are basically the noble brits liberating the papists from the bad Frogs and from time to time the useless Spanish make a cameo to be useless and stupid and the Portuguese sometimes, two times, show up to protect their own country.

I wouldn't say 'noble'...more 'gritty', but otherwise agree. I love his books, but there's no doubt the Brits are pretty much always the plucky heroes who triumph against the odds, and their enemies the arrogant supremely gifted favourites...which is why the only Napoleonic battle he covers is his one loss to the Brits, and the Hundred Year books kinda leave off the second half.

Good grief. Difficult to know where to start with this. How about -

"the useless Spanish make a cameo to be useless" - the novels make it very clear time and again how important the guerillas were to the war effort. They're less flattering about the Spanish senior officers but then they're not terribly flattering about British senior officers either. Oh, and one of the key characters in "Sharpe's Rifles" is Major Blas Vivar, a Spanish dragoon who rescues Sharpe and his men after they are almost wiped out by French cavalry, takes him under his wing and shows Sharpe how to be a decent officer.

"the only Napoleonic battle he covers is his one loss to the Brits" - the viewpoint character of the books is an officer in the peninsular army - what other battles is he supposed to cover? But even by this standard the statement is objectively not true - "Sharpe's Rifles" is about the retreat to Corunna, which is unflinchingly portrayed as a disaster.

 

[RPW@Cy]

Napoleon and Hannibal remain the only generals around whom an overall strategy developed of 'do not engage this commander'.

I don't think there are any superlatives to transcend that fact,

How about that Wellington and Suvorov count amongst the relatively small number of senior generals of whom it can plausibly be said they never lost a battle? Something that certainly can't be said of Napoleon.

And Wellington then?

Well, he sure was a brilliant tactician who very well understood how to best utilise his 18th century style British troops in a sideshow campaign, but also having a very helpful enemy usually choosing to charge headlessly into the musketfire and by not having to meet Napoleon himself until Napoleon and his army was only a shadow of their former glory (and helped by the charge of the (Prussian) cavalry). Had we placed Wellington and British troops at Jena/Auerstadt instead of Prussians the French would have been just as successful as in the OTL battle(s).

If you really think Napoleon could crush Wellington with the latter having a 2:1 numerical advantage then I'm not sure we can have a productive discussion, TBH.

Anyway Wellington never had to command any of those huge offensive campaigns like 1805, 1806/07, 1809, 1812 and 1813 where Napoleon could not just wait for the enemy to strike but had to force the enemy to taking engagement.

Winning without having huge resources at your command is usually regarded as a mark of a general's ability, but YMMV.

The campaigns from 1805-1809 IMHO belong in the "Global and eternal hall of fame of warfare".

I wouldn't go quite that far, but Napoleon was undeniably at the height of his powers in that period. Incidentally, after Austerlitz he commented to Berthier to the effect that he had six good years left in him - six years later of course he was marching on Moscow.

Already by 1809 his enemies had improved a lot and his own troops declined and in 1812 you could add severe strategic overreach and King Frost fighting you.

This is a standard piece of Napoleonic apologia. In fact, as Minard's extraordinary work makes clear, something like 80% of Napoleon's losses occured before the first snowflake fell.

Just o be absolutely clear (and to answer the OP's question) - Napoleon was clearly a highly able commander and it wasn't down to luck, but he certainly wasn't the greatest general of all time and probably wasn't even the greatest of his era.

 

[Karolus Rex]

Good grief. Difficult to know where to start with this. How about -

"the useless Spanish make a cameo to be useless" - the novels make it very clear time and again how important the guerillas were to the war effort. They're less flattering about the Spanish senior officers but then they're not terribly flattering about British senior officers either. Oh, and one of the key characters in "Sharpe's Rifles" is Major Blas Vivar, a Spanish dragoon who rescues Sharpe and his men after they are almost wiped out by French cavalry, takes him under his wing and shows Sharpe how to be a decent officer.

I read all the books too:

Sharpe's Rifles - You meet the only competent Spanish officer in both Europe, the Americas and Asia, Blas Vivar. Funny that this book manages to ignore Blake y Joyes, given that it was his army that covered the British retreat to Coruña, as the Ejército de Galicia never stopped fighting against the advancing French.

Sharpe's Havoc - You have the Portuguese Cameo on this one, with Jorge Vicente the poor Portuguese lawyer turned soldier that loves the rich Englishwoman and learns all he knows thanks to the brave and invencible Richard "Butcher of Frogs" Sharpe. I think you also get some extra cameos from some Portuguese Guerrilheiros.

Sharpe's Eagle - The Spanish are idiots doing idiot things. They make a cameo at the Battle of Talavera despite they being the majority of the allied army. One of the cameos is them running in fear after being scared by their own muskets firing. Sure they did tons of shit on the true Campaign but ignoring the few things they did right and that they kept fighting after the English went back to Portugal is a bit insulting to them.

Sharpe's Gold - Sharpe blows up the Portuguese Fortress of Almeida.

Sharpe's Escape - Third and last Portuguese Cameo, we get Vicente again and this time the opponent is a Portuguese sellout.

Sharpe Fury - Spanish are retarded, again. All the Portuguese troops on the battle are magically replaced by British, and for some reason it gives the idea that the Brits did all the work, ignoring Almanza Creek. Yes La Peña was a retarded but ignoring the rest just because of the idiot General...

Sharpe Company - Siege of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo and again the Portuguese are magically transformed into British soldiers.

Do I continue or it this enough?

"the only Napoleonic battle he covers is his one loss to the Brits" - the viewpoint character of the books is an officer in the peninsular army - what other battles is he supposed to cover? But even by this standard the statement is objectively not true - "Sharpe's Rifles" is about the retreat to Corunna, which is unflinchingly portrayed as a disaster.

He was mostly referring to the fact that the Hundred Years War books ignore all the French victories. Look the guy is a good writer, I have most of his books!!; but he has some very big bias.