Napoleon: genius — or just plain lucky?
The bicentenary of Waterloo obliges us to question whether Napoleon Bonaparte, a more charismatic figure than snooty Wellington, was a greater military strategist than the duke. In the Italian Campaign of the late 1790s, Napoleon certainly demonstrated his ability to outmanoeuvre, by speed and surprise, the elderly, staid generals of the austrian ancien regime. But as First Consul at Marengo in 1800 he met a more redoubtable foe in Michael von Melas. His uninspired frontal attack, constantly repulsed by a staunch austrian defence, left Napoleon in danger of losing the battle but for the timely intervention of a cavalry charge led by louis desaix, which effectively outflanked the enemy. desaix lost his life but, in tribute, Bonaparte wore the dead man’s coat thereafter. austerlitz in 1805 is cited as his most prestigious triumph. In the december mists, Napoleon left a token force guarding the road to Vienna below the heights of Pratzen. The austrian/ russian coalition encamped on the other side of the heights, blindly thinking this was Napoleon’s main force, attacked it and depleted their own centre. a cavalry charge over the heights resulted in the hapless austrians and russians fighting on two fronts and their inevitable defeat. Notwithstanding this, in his didactic novel War and Peace, leo Tolstoy characterises Napoleon as a chancer and a poseur (no doubt coloured by a relative having served on the losing side). Jena-auerstedt, in 1806, consisted of further uninspired frontal assaults, this time on the Prussians, with louis davout, rather than Bonaparte, winning the plaudits. Borodino in 1812 and Waterloo in 1815 were also bloody frontal slogs, resulting in thousands of casualties. In an attritional push, Napoleon’s Imperial Guard might have gained a pyrrhic victory over Wellington at Waterloo but for the timely intervention of Gebhard Blucher, a curious mirror image of what had happened at Marengo 15 years earlier, albeit on a more massive and devastating scale. Was Napoleon, an artillery officer whose mathematical exactitude could decimate divisions, a supreme strategist, or just a chancer who played deal Or No deal with the princes of europe? your view probably depends on which side of the english Channel or La Manche you’re from.
JAMES MARTIN, Cowdenbeath, Fife.