Napoleon On the Art of War

by Jay Luvaas (Editor)

In the capstone work of his career, distinguished military historian Jay Luvaas brings together in one volume the military genius of Napoleon.
Unlike Sun Tzu or Carl von Clausewitz, Napoleon never wrote a unified essay on his military philosophy. Yet, as one of the world's great strategists and tacticians, he sprinkled wisdom throughout his many and varied writings. Jay Luvaas spent over three decades poring through the thirty-two volumes of Napoleon's correspondence, carefully translating and editing all of his writings on the art of war, and arranging them into seamless essays. The resulting book captures the brilliant commander's thoughts on everything from the preparation of his forces to the organization, planning, and execution of his battles -- all buttressing Napoleon's view that "in war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it." Napoleon on the Art of War will be essential reading for military buffs, students of history, and any business leader looking for timeless insights on strategy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, European History, Philosophy, Military Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

A U.S. Navy veteran, Jay Luvaas graduated from Allegheny College, and received a Ph.D. in history from Duke University. He served as the Director of the Flowers Collection of Southern Americana at Duke University Library, and as a long-time professor of history at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was the first civilian to be appointed as Visiting Professor of Military History at the United States Military Academy. He also taught at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, where he served as Professor of Military History from 1982 to 1995. Following his retirement, he was honored in 1997 as a Distinguished Fellow of the Army War College. He twice received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the Department of the Army for his many contributions to the educational mission of the U.S. Army.

Reviews

[Antigone]

Jay Luvaas is a historian who served as a visiting professor at the U.S. Military Institute and, shortly thereafter, was named the first Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army War College. This slim volume is the product of several decades spent pouring over Bonaparte's writings on war; material he has streamlined into ten concise essays that cover such matters as the creation of a fighting force, training, combat arms, command, organization, field tactics and the operational art. Napoleon speaks to these topics and more through letters sent pre-battle to his marshals and dictations offered at the close of his life from exile on St. Helena.

This collection gives insight into the military aspect of Bonaparte's mind - which appears to have been a very well-ordered and sharply-functional bit of headspace. He is remarkably engaging on the subject of war; his prodigious grasp of battle and the battlelords of ages past is refined and applied with startling efficiency to the fields he faced in his own day and the men he was provided to face them with. I found his discussions on troop discipline, the unity of command, and the use/misuse of fortifications to be of particular interest - although it must be said that the final chapters (and the appendix providing Bonaparte's critical analysis of the wars of Frederick the Great) were strictly tailored for the tactical buff.

Keep that in mind as you read the following quote, which is not representative of the book as a whole and yet so terribly fun and funny and terrifically...well...French.

Napoleon on his commanders:

I loved Murat because of his brilliant bravery, which is why I put up with so much of his foolishness. Like Ney, Murat was incomparable on the field of battle, but he always committed stupid mistakes. He understood how to conduct a campaign better than Ney and still he was a poor general. He always waged war without maps, and how many mistakes did he not commit to be able to establish his headquarters in a chateau where there could be women! As for bedding down with a woman...my woman could have died in Munich or Strasbourg and it would not have upset my projects or views by a quarter of an hour.

Two hundred years later, and this still has the power to garner an eye roll from me.

[R.]

This was really a 3.5/5 but that's not an option so I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and move them up instead of down. Good book and a very easy read compared to a lot of other teastises on tactics and military operations. That said, it wasn't really written by Napoleon in order to become a comprehensive manual on conducting war. It was written piecemeal and the things in here were drawn from letters to his Corps Commanders and other places like that. We really don't know what Napoleon would have had to say in his own version of the Clausewitzean classic.

This is something worth reading for entertainment value to the military historian or philosopher, it is not something that I would read in order to gather a better understanding of Napoleon or Napoleonic Warfare.

[Roberto Rigolin F Lopes]

Napoleon was such a clever guy pushing people to study history of war and had all the soldiers proportions figured out to win battles; even using fortified cities, the man knew it in advance. He used letters to sync up with his distributed troops. He almost conquered the whole civilized world with that. What he would be able to do with high-speed internet? Just kidding…

[Tin Wee]

This is a collection of letters, directions and observations by Napoloeans to his various generals, which reveal his thoughts on strategy, organisation, and conduct of war during his time. Napolean shows his clear attention to detail, citing arms and ammunition carried by different troops, days required between different destinations, number of troops in each formation. He exhorts a keen understanding of his own commanders and soldiers, those he is fighting, the terrain on which they fight. However, the European style of battle seem to be characterized by maneuvers into favourable positions for set piece battles in which to destroy the enemy. In this sense, the strategies and tactics seem more brutal and less sophisticated than the methods in Sun Tzu's Art of War. Nonetheless, a good insight into the types of battles fought in Europe in that era.

[Friedrich Von der weth]

El libro es una compilación de cartas y escritos de Napoleón divididas por materias. Creo que el capítulo más relevante es el relacionado a educación militar, donde confirma que los principios deben ser vistos como una guía, pero que en la historia, están las fuentes más valiosas para el estudio militar.

[Steve]

This isn't about Napoleon -- it's all by Napoleon: directives, letters, communications. And it gives us a fascinating window into how he conducted war and waged politics. I found some pieces more interesting than others, but military history buffs will want to read it.

[Ron Nurmi]

A look at the Art of War as practiced by Napoleon one of the masters often in his own words.

[SLAM]

I recognize there’s value here…but it’s hard when you’re sifting a bunch of collected random letters, some of which are contradictory. DNF

[Scott]

Interesting if you are a student of warfare and tactics.