Military career of Napoleon

The military career of Napoleon spanned over 20 years. He led French armies in the French Revolutionary Wars and later, as emperor, in the Napoleonic Wars. Despite his comprehensive battle-winning record, Napoleon ended his career in defeat. Nevertheless, European history has since regarded Napoleon as a military genius and one of the finest commanders in history. His battles, campaigns and wars have been studied at military schools worldwide. Such campaigns as the Italian campaign of 1796–1797, the Ulm campaign and the Six Days' Campaign demonstrated his strategic and tactical genius. He fought more than 80 battles, losing only ten, mostly towards the end when the French army was not as dominant.^[1] As historian Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky observed, Napoleon was a "despotic sovereign of the battlefield, in whose presence but few generals ventured to maneuver, striving only to ward off his blows." Napoleon never sought refuge behind ridges, redoubts, etc.; he was a proponent of the offensive principle.^[2]

The French dominion collapsed rapidly after the invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon was defeated in 1814 and exiled to the island of Elba, before returning to France. He was finally defeated in 1815 at Waterloo. He spent his remaining days in British custody on the remote volcanic tropical island of Saint Helena. In his long military career, Bonaparte celebrated at least 64 victories and suffered 10 defeats; 6 battles ended with an uncertain outcome.^[3]

Napoleon especially proved his tactical genius in major encounters, worthy examples of which may be such as of Toulon, Rivoli, Austerlitz, Friedland and Dresden.

The siege of Toulon is notable for Napoleon's identification and capture of a key fortified position for the shelling of the Allied fleet, which entered Toulon, as it made further defence useless; Southern France was saved from invasion by sea.

The Rivoli battle, from Napoleon's point of view, consisted of noting the exhaustion of the main Austrian column, which was pushing back the French, and its lack of sufficient artillery and cavalry support, then sending of supervacaneous French troops from that area to repel the flanking Austrian column, which was breaking through a narrow passage, meeting it with infantry, cavalry and artillery from all sides, and afterwards sending French troops from there to repel the main attack. The strategic and tactical result was devastating for the Austrian army.

By Austerlitz, the French Imperial Army became the best in Europe, according to one point of view. Largely due to Bonaparte's corps innovations.^[4] The Allies, however, were in a formidable defensive position. The Austerlitz battle took place during foggy weather. The French decisive victory was achieved thanks to Napoleon's plan, which weakened his right flank, thereby lured them out to attack, and delivered a massive blow to the weakened heights. "The Sun of Austerlitz" cleared the fog and encouraged the Frenchmen as they were pushing up the heights. Hence Napoleon cut the allied army in half and routed it; the casualties were catastrophic for the Allies. Austerlitz ended the War of the Third Coalition.

At Friedland, the troops of Marshal Jean Lannes managed to avoid being broken on the first day of battle against superior forces. Then, Napoleon arrived with his main force, insightfully saw the weakness of the Russian position, which was located with its back to the river and divided by a stream, and dealt crushing blows, defeating the Russians piecemeal and ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.

By Dresden, Napoleon's army was inferior to the allied Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies in terms of quality due to the great depletion of manpower during the earlier wars, but he quickly and unexpectedly arrived with reinforcements into the fortified city from the east (where he chased another allied army), smashed the twice-superior allied forces by counterattacking and inflicting relatively monstrous casualties. Thus a brilliant tactical victory was achieved.

Lodi, Mount Tabor, Jena (Auerstedt is Marshal Davout's achievement) and Ligny are also examples of strong famous victories won by Napoleon on a battlefield. In the First Italian campaign (1796–1797), Napoleon's army splits two opposing armies, creating a central gap between them, and crushes individual forces in dozens of battles, knocking Piedmont out of the war, and then Austria. In the Ulm campaign, Napoleon's superior, newly formed corps encircle and destroy an entire army. In the Six Days' campaign, he takes advantage of the dispersed enemy army, which outnumbers him twice as much, and strikes at the battles of Champaubert, Montmirail, Château-Thierry and Vauchamps; the enemy army loses more than half its strength. At Montmirail and Château-Thierry battles, Napoleon made active use of the Old Guard, "the elite of the elite", as well; but only one of its battalions was involved at Vauchamps. Napoleon had a similar campaign to the Six Days' in his career as well, the "four-day campaign," during which his army with quick maneuvers divided the Austrian army into two parts and confidently defeated it 4 times in 4 days, namely, at Teugen-Hausen, Abensberg, Landshut, and Eckmühl.

The full list of Napoleon's victories, defeats, and drawn battles is shown in the table below. It excludes engagements such as La Maddalena or Heilsberg, where the outcome did not depend directly on Napoleon's actions.

^[a]

• Chandler, David G. The Campaigns of Napoleon (1973) 1172 pp; a detailed guide to all major battles excerpt and text search
• Crowdy, Terry. Napoleon's Infantry Handbook (2015)
• Dupuy, Trevor N. and Dupuy, R. Ernest. The Encyclopedia of Military History (2nd edition 1970) pp 730–770
• Elting, John R. Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grand Armee (1988)
• Esdaile, Charles. Napoleon's Wars: An International History 1803–1815 (2008), 621pp
• Gates, David. The Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815 (NY: Random House, 2011)
• Hazen, Charles Downer. The French Revolution and Napoleon (1917) online free
• Nafziger, George F. The End of Empire: Napoleon's 1814 Campaign (2014)
• Parker, Harold T. "Why Did Napoleon Invade Russia? A Study in Motivation and the Interrelations of Personality and Social Structure," Journal of Military History (1990) 54#2 pp 131–46 in JSTOR.
• Pope, Stephen (1999). The Cassel Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars. Cassel. ISBN 0-304-35229-2.
• Riley, Jonathon P. Napoleon as a General (Hambledon Press, 2007)
• Rothenberg, Gunther E. (1988). "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon". Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 18 (4): 771–793. doi:10.2307/204824. JSTOR 204824. JSTOR 204824
• Rothenberg, E. Gunther. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (1977)
• Schneid, Frederick C. (2011). The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Mainz: Institute of European History.
• Shoffner, Thomas A. Napoleon's Cavalry: A Key Element to Decisive Victory (2014)
• Smith, Digby George. The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book: Actions and Losses in Personnel, Colours, Standards and Artillery (1998)