'Aussie Rick'’s Comments (group member since Jun 13, 2009)

'Aussie Rick'’s comments from the THE NAPOLEONIC WARS group.

The April 2025 theme read is any book or books of your choice that covers one of Napoleon's Campaigns between 1812 and 1813.

Hi folks,

Since I am downsizing and selling my house, a large number of my books have been sent to storage or sold/given away. Due to that fact I need to change the April theme from "Russian Campaign of 1812" to "Napoleon's Campaigns between 1812 and 1813" as I don't have any 1812 books on hand.

Sounds like a decent account Betsy, but you would think the Napoleonic period would have been the most interesting period of Talleyrand's life and as such the more detailed in the book.

Betsy wrote: "That's understandable. Just imagine how formidable Berthier would have been had he been good in the field too. I wonder which Napoleon would have preferred? After all, there was only one Berthier."

Indeed, men with Berthier's capabilities were rare back then!

Betsy wrote: "Right you are on Davout and Lannes, AR, but #3 is Berthier. I guess they felt his incomparable skills as 'Major-General' outweighed his deficiencies in the field. Considering the mistakes made on J..."

I nearly went with Berthier but concentrated more on the Marshals with battlefield skills.

Betsy wrote: "Have added several more episodes, including the last one rating the Marshals. Can you guess who the top 3 are? ☺"

Davout, Lannes & Suchet?

Betsy wrote: "AR, I've now seen the episodes on Austerlitz, Eylau, and Cape St. Vincent. Knowing your liking of Eylau, I think you would appreciate the info on this battle. The one on Cape St. Vincent was good t..."

Sounds great! I will have to see if I can access the show here in Australia.

Betsy wrote: "Not a movie but I have just found a new series called Epic History TV which has a 15-part series on the Napoleonic Wars. The first one is Austerlitz, the second is Jena. Am looking forward to watch..."

Sounds pretty good Betsy, let us know how it goes.

Really glad to hear you enjoyed the book Scott, even though work managed to interrupt your enjoyment, typical!

Betsy wrote: "There's another book out on Talleyrand that I might read since I would like another viewpoint."

Never hurts to read a different perspective!

Betsy wrote: "I kind of had that figured out, AR. 🙂. Frankly, I have more respect for him than I used to, but never for Fouche."

It's good when a book can alter your opinion on a subject when it provides more detail or can put in context some of the actions of that subject.

I'm in the camp of teeth gritters! :)

Great post Betsy! That quote has stood the test of time eh!

"Extremists, to whatever camp they belong, are the disease in the body politic. They can never create, but when the general health of the body is weak, they can bring destruction."

Betsy wrote: ""Although Talleyrand cannot be accused of excessive modesty there was one boast that he might have made and from which he refrained. The policy which he had persuing at the Congress and which he ha..."

Great post Betsy, I suppose I must concede that Talleyrand had at least one good policy/idea!

Betsy wrote: "1814: Talleyrand had been out of favor for four years. He had watched as Napoleon had taken a new wife, he had watched as the situation in Spain had become a chronic infection of defeat, he had wat..."

Good post Betsy!

Napoleon fought hard and he fought well but seemed to lose his strategic vision and was hoping for a miracle.

"Clausewitz" - A few quotes from the Epilogue of the book:

"Among the students attending the Berlin War Academy while Clausewitz was Director was a young officer in his early twenties. Like the others he probably considered Clausewitz to be undistinguished and unexceptional. But when Helmuth von Moltke had himself risen to the summit of the Prussian army, and, as Chief of the General Staff, directed the Prussian operations against the French in 1870, he was to be a more fervent student of Clausewitz than ever he could have been in the 1820s. As Michael Howard has written: 'The Franco-German conflict was to be settled by the methods of Clausewitz'."

And finally:

"The successes which Moltke won for Prussia in 1870-71 were the final vindication for Clausewitz's message - or the message as the Generals read it. On War was therefore championed by those who believed all nations should have massive armies, ready to be thrown on to the offensive, aimed at totally annihilating the opposing force. Marshal Foch, who dominated French strategy before 1914 and who was fated to be supreme commander of the allied armies in France for the closing stages of the First World War, drew heavily upon Clausewitz - as he misinterpreted him - in his {rinciples of War, published in 1903. He quoted Clausewitz: 'Blood is the price of victory. You must either resort to it or give up waging war,' and wrote: 'Modern war knows but one argument: the tactical fact, battle. In view of this it asks of strategy that it should both bring up all available forces together, and engage in battle all these forces by means of tactical impulsion in order to produce the shock.'

This was an adequate description of Clausewitz's thoughts on abstract, offensive war; but it ran totally opposite to his beliefs about real, defensive war. Generals like Foch overlooked his serious warnings and vied with one another in increasing the offensive power of their armies. Yet Clausewitz had written: 'Not only reason, but experience, in hundreds and thousands of instances, show that a well-traced, sufficiently manned, and well-defended entrenchment is, as a rule, to be looked upon as an impregnable point'. The Generals believed that they, and not politicians, knew what real war was about. Yet Clausewitz had written that if this belief was allowed to predominate, 'we have before us a senseless thing without object.' So, fed on their misinterpretations of On War, the Generals rode out with their massive armies in 1914. The barbed wire and machine guns made the positions they attacked 'impregnable'; the result was senseless slaughter."

Clausewitz by Roger Parkinson

"Clausewitz" - One of the quotes from On War under a chapter heading:

"Standing still and doing nothing is quite plainly the normal condition of an army in the midst of war: acting, the exception."

On War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War

Betsy wrote: "But then you could say that Napoleon got away with it--twice. I know that heavy reparations and loss of territory can cause terrible hardships and further conflict, but are courts like Nuremberg or..."

Good question Betsy, the International courts in Nuremburg and Tokyo worked OK last time but they were different times eh! We now have the United Nations, but many countries have a vested interest tired up in their deliberations.

That's very true Betsy and that's exactly Clausewitz's point. Blucher and the rest of the Prussian military leadership wanted France to pay for the years of humiliation and the subsequent losses, but Clausewitz knew that treating France this way would only lead to further conflict and loss of life.

Owen wrote: "Recently picked up a couple second hand peninsular war books for about £7 each- 'March of Death: Sir John Moore's retreat to Corunna 1808-09' by Christopher Summerville and 'Oldest Allies: Alacantr..."

Two nice finds there Owen!