For most of the years from 1799 to 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte led the armies of France to victory over successive hostile coalitions. Despite his ultimate defeat and his mobile and offensive way of war, his personal leadership and strategic approach were widely admired in his day and are still studied.
Napoleon's achievements did not rest on superior armament or totally new tactics. His army's weapons differed little from those of his opponents, and his tactics were adapted from those practiced by the mass conscript forces of the French Revolution. What made Napoleon so formidable was the combination of his genius and a large, offensive‐minded army led by young and ambitious officers. A charismatic leader, he inspired his troops, Frenchmen and foreigners, with fierce loyalty and devotion. His greatest shortcoming was his refusal to train his senior subordinates for independent command; consequently, their performance often was faulty.
Between 1801 and 1805, Napoleon reorganized the French forces, creating what was called the Grande Armée. The permanent institution of the corps system perhaps was most important. Normally commanded by a marshal, a corps consisted of two to four infantry divisions, some cavalry, artillery, and support troops, strong enough to defeat equal numbers and hold against superior forces until reinforced. Some formations Napoleon kept under his own control: the Army Artillery Reserve, the Army Cavalry Reserve, and the Imperial Guard.
Napoleon always preferred to fight on the offensive, and acting as his own operations officer, made all major decisions. He had the unique talent to conceive a campaign as a complete sequence leading to his main objective: the destruction of the enemy's army or will to fight in one great decisive battle, followed by vigorous pursuit. Careful planning, combining deception and rapid movement, was designed to compel the enemy to fight this battle at a disadvantage. In the Italian campaign of 1796, Napoleon's small army of 35,000 men won victories over the stronger Austrians and Piedmontese by bringing superior strength to bear against each individual enemy force, defeating them in succession. Greater numbers and the corps system enabled Napoleon to develop new strategic sequences. Normally a campaign started with the corps marching widely dispersed along separate routes. Once the enemy's main force was located, the corps pulled closer together, advancing in a diamond‐shaped formation. The first corps to contact the enemy engaged him at once while the other corps came into action along the flanks and the rearmost corps remained reserve. A variant of this strategic movement was Napoleon's famous maneuver in the rear. The enemy would be pinned by what he believed was Napoleon's main force, while the bulk of the French Army swept around to cut his communications and compel him to turn and fight at a disadvantage or to surrender. The 1805 U1m campaign and the Battle of Austerlitz are the most successful examples.
In battle, Napoleon favored the offensive and stood on the defensive only three times, at Leipzig (1813) and at La Rothière and Arcis (1814). Each time he assumed the defensive only after his initial attack had failed. Basically, his battle tactics stressed offensive movement supported by massive fire, though he tried to retain an element of surprise. He usually sought to direct his main blow against an enemy flank while occupying his front with simultaneous attacks, often infantry combined with cavalry. A second variant was the frontal attack while a flanking maneuver was launched. In both cases, the enemy was gradually weakened, and then, with a superb sense of timing, Napoleon would release his reserve for the smashing blow. Infantry attack columns supported by cavalry and horse artillery moved to breach the enemy's front or flank, while light cavalry would be launched to turn retreat into rout. From Marengo (1800) to Wagram (1809), Napoleon's talent to seize the right moment, together with the overall superior quality of his army, assured victory. But as time passed, he no longer was at his peak, and the quality of his troops declined, while his enemies had learned their lessons.
Besides improving their forces, Napoleon's opponents adopted the corps system that made it impossible to destroy an entire army in one battle. Ultimately, Napoleon's attempt to exploit the central position failed because of British‐Prussian strategic cooperation at Waterloo (1815).
Nonetheless, the pattern of Napoleonic warfare continued to be studied and many of his innovations, especially the corps system, were retained. His strategic concepts—in particular, the central position and the maneuver on the rear—remained models for future commanders and were studied even in the fledgling U.S. Army. Napoleonic warfare as expounded in the writings of Baron Antoine Henri Jomini was transmitted to American officers by the teaching at the recently founded Military Academy at West Point and came to influence the generals of the Civil War.
Jomini's writings provided a schematic and prescriptive interpretation of Napoleonic operations, an approach well suited to West Point's engineering emphasis. They provided the basis for the teachings of Dennis Hart Mahan, professor of civil engineering and the science of war from 1832 to 1871. Over time, Mahan came to stress the more offensive aspects of Jomini, while Mahan's most brilliant student, Henry W. Halleck, published his Elements of Military Art and Science in 1846—an influential work presenting a more defensive‐minded view of Jomini's principles. American operations in Mexico in 1846, offensive though hardly Napoleonic, provided additional impetus for strategic studies, and in 1848 officers at West Point founded a Napoleonic Club, chaired by Mahan, to discuss Napoleonic campaigns. Participants included Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan.
If a clear consensus on the thrust of Jomini's work did not emerge, his influence on the commanders in the Civil War was great. It has been said that they went to war with the sword in one hand and a copy of Jomini in the other. But the results were unclear. Jomini's influence may have made McClellan and Halleck too cautious, while Lee's use of the central position and his turning maneuver at the Second Battle of Bull Run (1862) and at the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863) showed a Napoleonic touch. In the end, of course, the new rifled weapons, extended frontages, and rapid rail movements, which negated much of the advantage of the central position, required a quite different approach. The Civil War victory was devised by Ulysses S. Grant, who claimed that he had never paid much attention to Jomini, and echoing a statement attributed also to Napoleon, declared that the art of war was simple enough: find your enemy and hit him as hard as you can.
[See also Academies, Service: U.S. Military Academy; Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Strategy: Fundamentals; Strategy: Historical Development.]
Bibliography
- David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 1966.
- James Marshall‐Cornwall, Napoleon as Military Commander, 1967.
- Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, 1977.
- Owen Connelly, Blundering to Glory: Napoleon's Military Campaigns, 1988
