Napoleon: A Life

by Andrew Roberts

Napoleon pioneered an operational level of warfare that lies between strategy and tactics.

Interesting. Between strategy and tactics

‘It is not peace that is important but the conditions of peace,’ he told Joseph, ‘and it’s too complicated for the comprehension of a Paris citizen.

Not peace but the conditions of peace

There was a modicum of modesty still left in Napoleon in 1805;

Foreshadowing a loss of modesty

disastrous underestimation of the British, whom

Underestimation of an enemy he has not met

‘War must pay for war,’ Napoleon was to write to both Joseph and Soult on July 14, 1810. He used three methods in a bid to achieve this end: straightforward seizure of cash and property from enemies (known as ‘ordinary contributions’); payments from enemy treasuries agreed in peace treaties (‘extraordinary contributions’), and the billeting and maintenance of French troops at foreign or allies’ expense. France would train, equip and clothe her armies, after that they were expected to be largely self-financing.

War financing: - take money during war? - take money after war - have other governments pay for care of French solldiers

in yet another bid to undermine Josephine.

Palace intrigue

It also solved Éléonore’s financial

Women want money. generally true or historical?

‘Religion is a kind of vaccination, which, by satisfying our natural love for the marvellous, keeps us out of the hands of charlatans and conjurors. The priests are better than the Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the visionaries of Germany.’52*

Interesting

‘governments had devolved too much power over education to the clergy’.

Who educates matters

Louis XIV would have first inquired if this brave man was noble. Napoleon asked if the noble was brave.’

Great phrasing

‘It’s true that beyond all I hate manipulative women.

Hates women?

International trade simply wasn’t the zero-sum game that, with his crude Colbertism, Napoleon assumed it to be.

Zero sum

Unlike anywhere else in Europe, a French family’s noble status simply lapsed if the next generation hadn’t done enough to deserve its passing on.6 Napoleon’s

Meritocracy? does it exist?

Lying deep within the French Revolution were the seeds of its own destruction because the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity are mutually exclusive.

Stunning Comment

equality before the law

Equality of opportunity

Savary explained in his memoirs that Napoleon never minded people disagreeing with him, so long as they did it in a loyal spirit and in private:

Interesting criteria for dissent

‘If you want to dine well, dine with Cambacérès,’ he told General Thiébault during the consulate, ‘if you want to dine badly, dine with Lebrun; if you want to dine quickly, dine with me.’

Great line karma yogi?

‘In war, men are nothing, but one man is everything,’ Napoleon

In war, men are nothing but one man is everything.

It was true, but as soon as he arrived in Donauwörth and discovered how badly dispersed his forces were he recognized the Austrian attack on Landshut to be both a threat and an opportunity: his corps could now converge on Archduke Charles from several directions at once.

A student of history, he had many mental models. As such, he drew upon different strategies. One must read and dedicate oneself to the craft (or profession) at hand.

‘The princes of this House have abandoned their capital,’ Napoleon declared in a proclamation that day, ‘not like soldiers of honour who cede to the circumstances and setbacks of the war, but like the perjured who are pursued by their own remorse.’

This was a man with moral weight

‘I am touched by your suffering, but I wish that you were more courageous. To live is to suffer, and a human being who is worthy of honour must always struggle for mastery of self.’

Hindu and Stoic and Buddhist

frank: the Tsar did not want a mésalliance between the Romanovs and a Corsican upstart any

Remember the basics

No one understood the importance of ‘bread and circuses’ as well as the modern Caesar, and the 6,000 veterans who married on the same day as him received 600 francs each.

People want bread and circuses

Tsar might be forced into war whether he wanted one or not.

Public opinion can be so strong

Furthermore, Napoleon had been proved right against the advice of others too often in the past for him to feel that the nay-sayers were right, even when there were a number of them.

Such as is fate. humility is warranted

Yet three emergency levies in 1812 raised no fewer than 400,000 new recruits for Russia, out of 1.1 million new recruits in the period 1805–13.

Numbers changed. napoleon underestimated that importance

Somehow the culture of the army had changed, so that Napoleon, who used to be so close to his men, was now regularly lied to by his senior commanders.

Very difficult challenge to be successful, surround yourself with able helpers, and then not notice that they changed

He was anxious for peace but in order to treat for it, two persons were necessary and he was only one.61

If you are brilliant, you are still only one person

boldness was the only prudential course’.

I see the logic. It was wrong though

‘More battles are lost by loss of hope than loss of blood.’ Attributed to Napoleon ‘Retreats always cost more men and matériel than the bloodiest engagements.’

2 great insights

‘There is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.’

Famous line

The wholesale adoption by all European armies of the corps system by 1812, making the Allies’ armies far more flexible in manoeuvre, was a tribute to the French, but also a threat to them.

Captured the mind of the people but not the heart of the leaders

‘I owe everything to my glory,’ he said. If I sacrifice it I cease to be. It is from my glory that I hold all my rights … If I brought this nation, which is so anxious for peace and tired of war, a peace on terms which would make me blush personally, it would lose all confidence in me; you would see my prestige destroyed and my ascendancy lost.44

Egad. what self-serving tendencies

Napoleon had either lost his antennae for who opposed and who supported him, or was so confident in his powers that he didn’t care.

Interesting failure mechanism

to avoid giving him battle, while continuing to concentrate on his subordinates.

Great strategy

Although rockets had been known about for sixteen years, and their efficacy had been attested at Copenhagen in 1807, Napoleon hadn’t developed a rocket capacity of his own.

Dont let competitors use new tech to beat you?

‘Between a battle lost and a battle won,’ Napoleon had said on the eve of the battle of Leipzig, ‘the distance is immense and there stand empires.’

Wow ugh thAts a scary comment so little between defeat and an empire

‘Public opinion is an invisible, mysterious, irresistible power,’ Napoleon mused later. ‘Nothing is more mobile, nothing more vague, nothing stronger. Capricious though it is, nevertheless it is truthful, reasonable, and right much more often than one might think.’7

Wisdom of the crowds

Napoleon of course knew perfectly well intellectually that Destiny and Fortune did not control his fate, but the concepts nonetheless exercised a hold on him throughout his life.

Interesting Concept

kept up discussions with the Allies over the possibility of a peace treaty, whose terms fluctuated day by day with the fortunes of the armies.

Such is reality

After the blood that has been shed, and the victories that have been gained, shall I leave France smaller than I found her?

True but not true More blood shed for his place in history

Long ago it was said that priests and doctors render death painful.’

Priests and doctors make death painful

‘it is one of the first principles of war to exaggerate your forces.

Good to know

The fickleness of the rest of the Empire might be judged from a Milanese deputation then on a visit to Paris to congratulate the man they had intended to call ‘Napoleon the Great’ for triumphing over all his enemies. On approaching the capital and hearing that it was being besieged they nonetheless decided to press on, and when they arrived promptly offered their congratulations to the Allies ‘on the fall of the tyrant’.89 Fifteen

The line between hero and zero is little

Napoleon suspected that they wanted him to abdicate in order to protect and enjoy the chateaux and riches he had given them, and gave voice to this opinion in bitter moments.

Lieutenants , underlings , have fickle allegiances . and, attachments make one weak

‘True heroism consists of being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge to the combat.’

Good quote

‘to study the welfare of the French people and endeavour to repair the evils his ambition had brought upon him’

Napoleon had changed

‘I sensed that Fortune was abandoning me. I no longer had in me the feeling of ultimate success, and if one is not prepared to take risks when the time is ripe, one ends up doing nothing.’

Act

Napoleon’s speed and tactical ability allowed him once again to strike at the hinge between the armies opposing him, as he had been doing for nearly twenty years.

Strike the hinge

all were the result of Napoleon not following his own military maxims.

You can forget what you know