the country. “In the movements and wars of invasion conducted by the
Emperor, there are no magazines; it is a matter for the commanding
generals of the corps to collect the means of victualling in the
countries through which they march,” writes Berthier to Marmont.
Napoleon took Vienna and marched out towards Brünn, where the Austrians
and Russians had concentrated. Here he was far from secure, if equal
talent had been opposed to him; but he took up a position near
Austerlitz, from which he could retreat through Bohemia, if necessary,
and, calmly watching the enemy and allowing several chances of winning
an ordinary victory to pass, he waited, with an audacity which almost
ran into braggadocio, for the enemy to commit some error from which
he could wrest a decisive one. And this the allies did, as Napoleon
divined they would do. They tried to turn his right flank and cut him
off from Vienna. Napoleon massed his forces on their centre and right,
broke these in pieces, and won the victory of which he was always most
proud. Napoleon’s conduct here showed distinctly a glint of what he
himself so aptly calls the divine part of the art.
There is always a corresponding danger in every plan which is of the
kind to compass decisive results. In this case Napoleon risked his
right wing. But to judge how much it is wise to risk and to guess just
how much the enemy is capable of undertaking is a manifestation of
genius.
The era of the great battles of modern war dates from Austerlitz.
Marengo was rather two combats than one great battle. Frederick’s
battles were wonders of tactics and courage, but they differ from the
Napoleonic system. In Frederick’s battles the whole army was set in
motion for one manœuvre at one time to be executed under the management
of the chief. If the manœuvre was interrupted by unforeseen events,
the battle might be lost. In Napoleon’s system, the centre might be
broken and the wings still achieve victory; one wing might be crushed
while the other destroyed the enemy. A bait was offered the enemy by
the exhibition of a weak spot to attract his eye, while Napoleon fell
on the key-point with overwhelming odds. But in this system the control
passed from the hand of the leader. All he could do was to project a
corps in a given direction at a given time. Once set in motion, these
could not readily be arrested. Such a system required reserves much
more than the old method. “Battles are only won by strengthening the
line at a critical moment,” says Napoleon. Once in, Napoleon’s corps
worked out their own salvation. He could but aid them with his reserves.
There is a magnificence of uncertainty and risk, and corresponding
genius in the management of the battles of Napoleon; but for purely
artistic tactics they do not appeal to us as do Frederick’s. The
_motif_ of Alexander’s battles is more akin to Napoleon’s; that of
Hannibal’s, to Frederick’s.
It has been said that Napoleon never considered what he should do
in case of failure. The reverse is more exact. Before delivering a
battle, Napoleon busied himself little with what he would do in case of
success. That was easy to decide. He busied himself markedly with what
could be done in case of reverse.
Like all great captains, Napoleon preferred lieutenants who obeyed
instead of initiating. He chafed at independent action. This was
the chief’s prerogative. But as his armies grew in size he gave his
marshals charge of detail under general instructions from himself.
Dependence on Napoleon gradually sapped the self-reliance of more than
one of his lieutenants, and though there are instances of noble ability
at a distance from control, most of his marshals were able tacticians,
rather than great generals. Napoleon grew impatient of contradiction
or explanation; and he sometimes did not learn or was not told of
things he ought to know. He was no longer so active. Campaigning was a
hardship. His belief in his destiny became so strong that he began to
take greater risks. Such a thing as failure did not exist for him. His
armies were increasing in size, and railroads and telegraphs at that
day did not hasten transportation and news. The difficulties he had to
contend with were growing fast.
These things had the effect of making Napoleon’s military plans more
magnificent, more far-reaching. But all the less could he pay heed
to detail, and from now on one can, with some brilliant exceptions,
perceive more errors of execution. In the general conception he was
greater than ever, and this balanced the scale. His ability to put all
his skill into the work immediately in hand was marvellous. But with a
vast whole in view, the parts were, perhaps of necessity, lost sight of.
The campaigns of 1806 and 1807 were in sequence. To move on the
Prussians, who, under the superannuated Duke of Brunswick, were
concentrated in Thuringia, Napoleon massed on his own right,
disgarnishing his left, turned their left,--in this case their
strategic flank, because the manœuvre cut them off from Berlin and
their allies, the Russians,--and with overwhelming vigor fell on the
dawdling enemy at Jena and Auerstädt. The Prussians had remained
stationary in the art of war where they had been left by Frederick, and
had lost his burning genius.
It was at the outset of this campaign that Jomini handed in to Marshal
Ney, his chief, a paper showing what Napoleon must necessarily do if
he would beat the Prussians and cut them off from their approaching
allies. He alone had divined the strategic secrets of the Emperor.
In this campaign we plainly see the growth of risk commensurate within
the magnitude of plan, but we also recognize the greater perfection
of general intuitions, the larger plan and method. Details had to be
overlooked, but the whole army was held in the Emperor’s hand like a
battalion in that of a good field officer. In forty-eight hours his
two hundred thousand men could be concentrated at any one point. And
the very essence of the art of war is to know _when_ you may divide,
to impose on the enemy, subsist, pursue, deceive, and to know _how_ to
divide so that you may concentrate before battle can occur.
[Illustration: JENA CAMPAIGN]
Again Napoleon had carried out his principle of moving on one line
in one mass on the enemy, and a few great soldiers began to see that
there was a theory in this. Jomini first grasped its full meaning and
showed that only battle crowns the work. Without it a general is merely
uncovering his own communications. Victory is essential to the success
of such a plan. Napoleon pushed restlessly in on the enemy. “While
others are in council, the French army is on the march,” quoth he.
In the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns, Napoleon’s manœuvre was so
admirably conceived that he kept open two lines of retreat, which he
could adapt to the enemy’s evolutions,--at Austerlitz via Vienna and
Bohemia, at Jena still more secure lines on the Rhine and on the Main
or Danube. This is a distinct mark of the perfection of the plans.
The succeeding Friedland campaign has several items of interest. At
his first contact with the Russians, Napoleon, instead of sticking to
his uniform plan of one mass on one line, tried to surround his enemy
before he knew where the tactical decision of the campaign would come.
Result, a thrust in the air by one corps, another did not reach the
appointed place, a third met unexpected and superior forces, and the
enemy broke through the net. Napoleon seemed to be experimenting. The
captain of 1796, Ulm, Jena, is for the moment unrecognizable.
The Russians attacked Napoleon in his winter-quarters, and the bloody
and indecisive battle of Eylau resulted, where for the first time
Napoleon met that astonishing doggedness of the Russian soldier, on
which Frederick had shattered his battalions at Kunersdorf. Later came
the victory of Friedland. Napoleon’s order for this day is a model for
study. Every important instruction for the battle is embraced in the
order; details are left to his lieutenants. Only the time of launching
the first attack is reserved to the chief. But the strategy of the
Friedland campaign was not so crisp. The true manœuvre was to turn the
Russian left, their strategic flank, and throw them back on the sea.
Napoleon turned their right to cut them off from Königsberg. It was
mere good luck that Friedland ended the campaign. Even after defeat
the enemy could have escaped.
In the Spanish campaign of the winter of 1807–8, Napoleon reverted to
his 1796 manœuvre of breaking the enemy’s centre. But Napoleon had
undertaken what could not be accomplished,--the subjugation of Spain.
His own strategy and the tactics of his marshals were both brilliant
and successful; he could have compelled a peace, had such been the
object. But to subdue a people fanatically fighting for their homes,
in a mountainous country, is practically impossible by any means short
of extermination. It was in the political, not the military, task that
Napoleon failed.
While Napoleon was struggling in Spain, Austria deemed the occasion
good again to assert herself. This gave Napoleon an opportunity of
leaving to his lieutenants a game he already saw he could not win, but
in which he had achieved some brilliant openings, and hurry to fields
on which he felt a positive superiority. His army and allies were
already on the scene.
Berthier was in charge, and to him Napoleon had given full and explicit
instructions. But Berthier, though a good chief of staff, had no
power to grasp a strategic situation. By not obeying orders, he had,
by the time Napoleon arrived, muddled the problem, and instead of
concentrating behind the Lech, had got Davout’s corps pushed out to
Ratisbon, where it was liable to be cut off. Napoleon was in perilous
case. But by a beautiful and rapid series of manœuvres, in which he cut
the enemy in two, he wrought victory out of threatening defeat. He was
justly proud of this. “The greatest military manœuvres that I have
ever made, and on which I most flatter myself, took place at Eckmühl,
and were immensely superior to those of Marengo or other actions which
preceded or followed them.” It is the rapidity and suddenness of these
manœuvres which distinguished them from 1805. There was a regular plan.
Here a constant series of surprises and changes.
In making his plans, Napoleon never began by “What can the enemy do?”
but he first sought to place his army in the best position, and then
asked, “What now can the enemy do?” This gave him the initiative. But
his plan was always elastic enough to bend to what the enemy might do.
He never made plans colored by the enemy’s possibilities. He chose
his own plan intelligently, according to the geography, topography,
and existing conditions, and made it elastic enough to be equal to
the enemy’s. “The mind of a general should be like the glass of a
telescope in sharpness and clearness, and never conjure up pictures.”
The elasticity of Napoleon’s Eckmühl plan is well shown by his ability
to turn threatening disaster into brilliant success.
During all these days, Napoleon was tremendously active. He was
personally at the important points. He hardly ate or slept. His body
was governed entirely by his will. The soldier of 1796 was again
afoot. But he was well and hearty. The lapse he now made is all the
more singular. The Archduke Charles had been beaten at Eckmühl and
was retiring into Ratisbon to cross the Danube; Napoleon neglected to
pursue. They say he was persuaded by his marshals that the troops were
too tired. For the first time in his life he succumbed to an obstacle.
“Genius consists in carrying out a plan despite obstacles, and in
finding few or no obstacles,” he once said.
Failure to pursue may come from the difficulty of leaving one’s
magazines, as in Frederick’s era, or because the captain is exhausted,
as well as the troops. But if the captain wants to pursue, the troops
can always do so. If the enemy can fly, the victor can follow. Some
part of the army is always in condition to march.
Jomini says that if Napoleon had here pursued like the Prussians after
Waterloo, it would have greatly modified the campaign. As it was, the
Archduke made good his escape. Napoleon had broken in between the two
wings of the Austrian army, but he had not crippled the one before
turning against the other. So that when he reached Vienna on the heels
of the left, he found ready to meet him the right wing, which he ought
to have crushed beyond so quick recovery at Ratisbon. This failure
to pursue is the first symptom of a habit which from now on is more
observably of not utilizing every advantage.
Then followed the crossing of the Danube at Lobau and the battles
around Aspern and Essling, which terminated with defeat and great loss.
The Archduke was on hand, received in overwhelming numbers that part
of the French army which crossed; the bridges were broken behind the
French; and a disastrous retreat to Lobau followed.
Napoleon’s difficulties were growing apace with the size of his
armies, and he was now opposed by abler men. But it also seems as if
occasional fits of apathy or impatience of exertion were growing on
him. His splendid energy at Eckmühl did not continue. Details received
less personal attention. He was more rarely at the front. He began
to rely on the eyes of others more than, with his ancient vigor, he
would have done--despite his dictum that “a general who sees through
the eyes of others will never be in condition to command an army as it
should be commanded.” Until battle actually opened, he lacked his old
enthusiasm. After the first gun he was himself again. But his method of
conducting war was no longer so crisp as of yore. He was more daring
than careful; he relied on his luck, and strove to cover errors of
omission by stupendous blows. He was suffering from not having about
him a well-educated, properly selected staff, each member drilled in
his specific duties. Till now Napoleon had been his own staff; but
with lessening activity, he had no one on whose eyes and judgment he
could rely. “The general staff is so organized that one cannot see
ahead at all by its means,” said he in the next campaign. Still it
must constantly be borne in mind that one hundred and fifty thousand
men cannot be commanded as readily as forty thousand. And Napoleon’s
breadth of view, his power of grasping the _tout ensemble_, were still
present in greater measure; and when he chose he could summon up all
his old spirit.
Succeeding this defeat were the skilful preparations for a new crossing
and battle, the putting over from Lobau of one hundred and fifty
thousand men and four hundred guns in one night, and the victory of
Wagram. Truly a marvellous performance! The strength of mind and
constancy displayed by Napoleon on Lobau recalls the elastic courage
of Alexander when, cut off from his communications, he turned upon the
Persians at Issus. But after Wagram the Austrians retired in good order
and Napoleon did not pursue. It was no doubt a difficult task, but with
the inspiration of his earlier days he would certainly have pushed the
Archduke home,--or lost the game. He forgot the principles which had
made him what he was, in not following up the retreat. To other and
even great generals this criticism could not apply, but Napoleon has
created a measure by which himself must be tried and which fits but a
limited group. In 1805 he said, “One has but a certain time for war.
I shall be good for it but six years more; then even I shall have to
stop.” Was Napoleon’s best term drawing to a close? Or was it that the
Archduke Charles was not a Würmser or a Mack?
In Napoleon’s battles, tactical details are made to yield to strategic
needs. Frederick generally chose his point of attack from a strictly
tactical standpoint. Napoleon did not appear to consider that there
were such things as tactical difficulties. He always moved on the enemy
as seemed to him strategically desirable, and with his great masses he
could readily do so. The result of Napoleon’s battles was so wonderful,
just because he always struck from such a strategic direction as to
leave a beaten enemy no kind of loophole. But Napoleon would have been
more than human if his extraordinary successes had not finally damaged
his character. It is but the story of Alexander with a variation. In
the beginning he was, after securing strategic value, strenuous to
preserve his tactical values. By and by he began to pay less heed to
these; stupendous successes bred disbelief in failure; carelessness
resulted, then indecision. Those historians who maintain that Napoleon
succumbed solely to the gigantic opposition his status in Europe had
evoked, can show good reasons for their belief, for Napoleon’s task
was indeed immense. But was he overtaxed more than Hannibal, Cæsar, or
Frederick?
In the Russian campaign (1812) Napoleon’s original idea was to turn
the Russian right, but finding the Russian position further north than
he expected, he resorted to breaking the Russian centre. It here first
became a question whether the rule of one mass on one line, distinctly
sound with smaller armies, will hold good with the enormous armies of
1812 or of modern days; whether the mere manœuvre may not become so
difficult of execution as to open the way to the destruction of the
entire plan by a single accident. Certainly its logistics grow to a
serious problem with a force beyond two hundred thousand men, and it
seems probable that when armies much exceed this figure, the question
of feeding, transportation, and command, even with railroads and
telegraph, make concentric operations more available. And the fact that
even Napoleon could not, in the absence of a thoroughly educated staff
and perfectly drilled army, obtain good results from the handling of
such enormous forces, gives prominence to the value of the Prussian
idea of placing greater reliance on an army drawn from the personal
service of the people and made perfect in all its details from the
ranks up, than on the genius of a single general.
The entire plan of the Russian campaign was consistent and good. The
Bonaparte of 1796 would probably have carried it through, despite its
unprecedented difficulties. But its execution was seriously marred
by the absence of Napoleon at the front, and the want of his ancient
decisiveness. To be sure he had nearly half a million men to command
and feed; but he was no longer the slim, nervously active, omnipresent
man. He was corpulent, liked his ease, and shunned bad weather. This
want appears in his long stay in Wilna, his failure to put his own
individuality into the details of the advance; his now relying on his
lieutenants, whom he had never trained, and some of whom were unable,
to rely on themselves. Napoleon began to draw his conclusions, not
from personal observation, but from assumed premises. He had from the
beginning the habit of underrating the enemy’s forces. It now grew to
be a rule with him to take one-third off from what the enemy really
had and double his own forces, in order to encourage his subordinates.
This exaggerated reckoning could not but lead to evil. There is none
of Frederick’s straightforward dependence on his own brain and his
army’s courage. The king’s frankness stands out in high relief against
Napoleon’s simulation.
But we must constantly bear in mind that Napoleon led an army of
unprecedented size, made up of different nationalities, in a limitless
territory, and that his difficulties were enormous. It should be noted
that Alexander’s largest army in the field numbered one hundred and
thirty-five thousand men; Hannibal’s less than sixty thousand; Cæsar’s
about eighty thousand; Gustavus’ never reached eighty thousand men;
Frederick had to parcel out his forces so that of his one hundred and
fifty thousand men he rarely could personally dispose of more than
fifty thousand in one body. Napoleon carried three hundred and sixty
thousand men into Russia. This is not a final measure of the task, but
it stakes out its size.
Some of Napoleon’s Russian manœuvres are fully up to the old ones.
The manner of the attempt to turn the Russian left at Smolensk and
seize their communications so as to fight them at a disadvantage, is
a magnificent exhibition of genius. But at the last moment he failed.
The _spirit_ of his plan was to seize the communications of his
opponent and force him to fight; the _letter_ was to seize Smolensk.
When he reached Smolensk, the Russians had retired to the east of the
city. Napoleon apparently overlooked the _spirit_ of his plan, and
though he could easily have done so, he did not cut the Russians off
by a tactical turning movement. He was not personally where he needed
to be,--on the right,--but remained at his headquarters. It may be
claimed that the commander of so huge an army must necessarily remain
at central headquarters. It is rather true that his administrative
aide should be there, and he at the point of greatest importance.
At Smolensk, theoretically and practically, this was the right, and
operations at this point were intrusted to by no means the best of
his subordinates. Napoleon’s intellect was still as clear as ever. It
was his physique and his power of decision which were weakening. Even
allowing the utmost to all the difficulties of the situation, if tried
by the rule of 1796 or 1805, this seems to be indisputable.
When Napoleon did not bring on a battle at Smolensk, the Russian
campaign had become a certain failure. For it was there settled that
he could not reach Moscow with a force sufficient to hold himself. He
had crossed the Niemen with three hundred and sixty-three thousand men.
At Moscow he could have no more than one hundred thousand. Arrived at
Smolensk he was called on to face retreat, which was failure; or an
advance to Moscow, which was but worse failure deferred,--almost sure
annihilation. This seems clear enough from the military standpoint.
But Napoleon advanced to Moscow relying largely on the hope that the
Russians would sue for a peace. For this dubious hope of the statesman,
Napoleon committed an undoubted blunder as a captain. It is hard to
divorce the statesman from the soldier. All great captains have relied
on state-craft, and properly so. But such was the purely military
syllogism.
Much has been written about Napoleon’s failure to put the guard in
at Borodino. Under parallel conditions at an earlier day, he would
certainly have done so. That he did not is but one link more in the
growing chain of indecisiveness. But had he done so, and won a more
complete victory, would it have made any eventual difference? Smolensk
was his last point of military safety. Even had he been able to winter
in Russia, it is not plain how spring would have bettered his case,
in view of the logistic difficulties and of the temper of the Russian
emperor and people. Time in this campaign was of the essence.
Once or twice on the terrible retreat, Napoleon’s old fire and decision
came to the fore, but during the bulk of it he was apparently careless
of what was happening. He habitually left to his generals all but the
crude direction of the outlying corps. The contrast between Napoleon in
this disaster and Napoleon after raising the siege of Acre, or after
the defeat at Aspern and Essling, is marked. He did not oppose his old
countenance to misfortune.
After this campaign, in which the grand army of half a million men
was practically annihilated, Napoleon showed extraordinary energy in
raising new troops, and actually put into the field, the succeeding
spring, no less than three hundred and fifty thousand men. They were
not the old army, but they were so many men. Napoleon understood this:
“We must act with caution, not to bring bad troops into danger, and
be so foolish as to think that a man is a soldier.” He had thirteen
hundred guns. “Poor soldiers need much artillery.” The lack of good
officers was the painful feature. The few old ones who were left were
ruined by bad discipline. The new ones were utterly inexperienced.