NAPOLEON'S STRATEGY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2283, 17 October 1914, Page 9

NAPOLEON'S STRATEGY

BEATING ENEMIES IN DETAIL GERMAN ADAPTATIONS Von Moltke, the great Prussian commander, who defeated tho Austrians in the Seven Weeks' War in 1866, and who out-manoeuvred Marshals M'Mahon and Bazaino and General Bourbaki, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was a profound believer in the strategy of the. great Napoleon (writes Mr. E. G. Marks in tho Sydney "Sun"). Ho relied on the strategy of Napoleon I to defeat Napoleon 111. "Whoever," said Von Moltke, "is well enough acquainted with the campaigns of Napoleon, to be able to recall at _ any moment the details of his campaigns and the movements that he ordered, has always in his hand the key to themovements proper to make under any given circumstances." Von Moltke repeatedly declared that Napoleon, tho creator of modern strategy, had 1 reduced to a defined science the lessons of the world's greatest captains of war for more than a thousand years. "If," said "Napoleon to Marshal Lannes (one of the world's greatest soldiers, killed by a cannon ball in the battle of Essling, against the Austrians in 1809), "I always appear prepared, it is because, before entering upon a campaign, I have thought out every possible- contingency. It. is not ■ genius which reveals to me suddenly what I should do ill circumstances unexpected by others; it is a study of.great captains from the time of the youthful Alexander the Great." The Duke of Wellington, like Napoleon, was no haphazard general. He profoundly thought out his plans before he acted. Throughout the Peninsular campaign he made this clear, and again in the Waterloo campaign. The reason of Napoleon's repeated triumphs over the Austrians, the Prussians, and the Russians was because his strategy was modern; theirs was antiquated and out-of-date. Fabian tactics against a,, general who moved his men with the incredible rapidity of Napoleon was the acme of insanity; and when it was too late the Austrians discovered their irreparable- error. Napoleon brought about the capitulation of the Austrian commander-in-chief, Mack, at Dim, because of vastly superior strategy. Although Napoleon had to march hfs army of 320,000 several hundred miles, he knew-more about the theatre of war, tho .enemy's lines of communication, the zones of assembly, the enemy's magazines, and the distribution of their forces boforo he left French territory than the Austrian divisional commanders themselves.

Learning the Country, The topography of the country was always his first earnest study. During the intervals of peace information'likely to be of use on any conceivable subject was systematically collected. Before him in his study at the Palace of the Tuileries, at St. Cloud or Mahnaison (tho latter was his favourite resi-. dence),. he, would, when evolving a new strategic move, against all possible opponents, ,or combinations of opponents, manoeuvre oh a board specially prepared pins with coloured heads of sealuig- . wax-to represent the ■ French and the enemies- of Prance. When he was solving a new move the bands of the guards ceased to play in the court yards, and silence reigned supremo. Then, when he was. satisfied that diis strategic move, studied in peace, would-not fail him iu war,, ho would seek out his indefatigable Chief of Staff (Marshal Berthier) and give him orders for the imaginary Plan of campaign. Thus Napoleon and his Chief of Staff rehearsed in peace plans which later rarely failed in actual war. ■ • -

It was Napoleon and Berthier who planned the crossing of the Alps. When Napoleon mentioned the amazing scheme to one of his generals of division, the latter exclaimed: "It is impossible." "Impossible!" thundered Napoleon, "that word to me is unknown when I wage war against the enemies of France. I , know, General, '* is not impossible, because my6elf and : Berthier have worked out every detail, in peace, and it only wants war to give our plan practical shape." Napoleon laid it down as an indispensable condition, that the strategist must never, during peace, relax his efforts to anticipate the complex problems of actual war. •

When the Franco-German wax of 1870 was over, and the great army of Marshal Bazaine had capitulated, praise was snowered upon Von Moltke. Ho then unreservedly declared that he had beat the French with the strategy of

Napoleon's Error. • .Napoleon's strategy always enabled Dim to distinguish, without delay, the point m the theatre of war at which swift and concentrated attack should be Uurled. In this respect his conception Was of the clearest. Owing to the extraordinary rapid manner in whioh he wfrtrfiA? me ?> tlle Precision flitn which the armies crossed the Danube and! other great rivers, Napoleon almost invariably occupied the best strategic positions. No general has ever paid greater attention to his lines t>t communication than Napoleon. All ms plans were based on alternate systems of victory and At the zenith of his power in 1809, after.the flame pi Wagrani, Napoleon was then as anxious and careful about his lines oi communication as in the Italian camin 1795, when he was carving out his military career. Napoleon was firmly of the opinion that mistakes in tie original concentration of an army are rarely rectified during a campaign. His successes were based on the strategy of first instance, and not the altered plan of campaign. In the present colossal struggle in Europe it is plain that the German strategy of nrst instance has failod. Hence strategy of second instance has been resorted to.

■ Napoleon sustained his first great defeat against the Allies because he adopted stratogv of second instance. Having defeated the Allies at Dresden in 1813, he knew they, would try to block his army at Leipzig, which commanded an important strategic position.- Hie move was to outflank the Allies, which had a numerical superiority of 200,000 men, and, in the ovent of that failing, cut his way through the enemy and march on Berlin. For the first timo in his career he allowed his marshals to override his original conception. A second plan of attack, not his conception, but that of his marshals, was adopted, and Napoleon's army was defeated. Napoleon always looked upon the altered plan of attack at the Battle of Leipzig as one of the greatest errors of his career, and he did not censure his marshals so much as he did himself for allowing his original conception to be supplanted by a secondary one. Driving Forces. The great strategic genius of Napolr.on was never more conspicuous than it was in the Russian campaign of 1812. He had made it a maxim that tho most consunvmat.o strategy was useless unless it wore associated with driving force. When Napoleon invaded Russia it was as if Peter the Hermit had arisen to impel the peoples of Western Europe and Central Europe once more against • tho immobilo East. Frenchmen to the number of 200,000 formed the kernel of this vast body; 147,000 Germans from the Confederation of the Rhino followed tho new Charlemagne; [nearly 80,000 Italians under Prince Eu-' pine (tho «on of tho Empress Jowphino' Iby. her ftrsfe husband, the Count Beau,'

harnais), formed an army of observa-' tiori ; 60,000 Poles stepped eagerly forth to wrest their dismembered nation's liberty from the 'Muscovite's grasp; and Illyrians, Swiss, aoid Dutch, along with a few Spaniards and Portuguese, swelled the Grand Army to 640,000 men. Nor was this all. Austria and Prussia sent their contingents, amounting to 50,000 men, to guard Napoleon's flanks on the side of Valhynia and Courland. And this mighty mass, driven on by Napoleon's will, gained a momentum which was to carry its main army, to, Moscow.' 'That ancient city was made the objective of Napoleon's strategy. His strategy was to find out with as much rapidity as; possible the e'nemy'e chief forces, divide them or cut them from, their communications, and beat thoni in detail. ■ Despite tho heavy shrinkage in the Grand Army caused by a remorseless rush through a country well-nigh stripped of supplies, Napoleon sought to force on a general engagement. After much retreating the superior strategy of Napoleon brought on the great battle of Borodino- Napoleon was victorious; the Russians lost 40,000 men, and there was now nothing to stop the French eagles entering Moscow. ' . '

The Retreat From Moscow. Although Napoleon' b strategy had brought him to his objective, Moscow, he gained nothing. The magnificent city was in flames, and tho Russians nowhere to bo seen. The retreat, the most appalling in the hietory of war, commenced on October 26, 1812. Every soldier shared the anguish of their great leader, and gloomy and silent they turned from tho foe whom they had never met but to defeat. On the evening of November 5 dense clouds commenced, forming in the sky, the wind lose and howled .through \he forests, and swept freezing blasts over tho. retreating hosts. At midnight a furious snowstorm Bet in. . The wind blow the snowflakes into.the soldiers' faces and penetrated their thin and tattered clothing.. Their breath froze and hung in ioioles from their , beards. Their limbs, were chilled and stiffened. The men could no longor keep their ranks, but toiled on in disordered masses. The muskets dropped from the benumbed hands of the soldiers. Flocks of ravens, emerging froii the forest mingled their shrieks with the uproar pi the elements, and with bloody fangs tore the flesh of the prostrate 'soldier almost before life was extinct. The wretched soldiers, exhausted, threw themselyes upon tie snowdrifts, never • to- rise again. For sixteen terrible hours this furious snowstorm lasted. Circular ranges of soldiers, stiff in death, , covered the drifted snow, and marked" the site of bivouacs. Thousands of snowy mounds, scattered over the plain, show ed where, during the night, mon and horses had perished m thousands, whilst the storm had wrapped rudely around them their winding-sheet. The Cossacks were harassing the retreating army and cutting off the stragglers. Marshal Ney, with herculean struggles',, and through frightful sufferings, immortalised liimself by his rearguard actions. He disputed every mile of the road, although assailed by countless hordes, and the heroism with which ho protected the roar of Napoleon's shattered army has excited the admiration of the world. Through all this awful retreat Napoleon was grave, silent,, and ■resigned. 'When the Grand Army reached Bercsina it Was only a remnant of the magnificent host which, a few months before, had marched triumphantly to Moscow. Only 40,000 men crossed the Beresina, into friendly territory, in addition to the Austrians and Prussians, who did not move from their original lines of communication. Beaten by Nature. Of tfie Russian, campaign Napoleon at St. Helena remarked. to General Goxigard: "My plan of campaign against Russia was laid on the most solid foundation; my strategic moves wore always too much for the enemy; iny lines of communication to the last were kept open; my alternative plans of victory and defeat were never lost; I won all my battles against tho enemy, especially. Borodino; I entered Moscow, the objective of my original strategy, but still my magnificent army perished; I had no strategy to outwit tno enowdrifts of Natural" , Napoleon's strategy enabled him in the majority of his great campaigns, from 1795 to 1815, to beat his enemies in detail and cut them off from their communications. {Repeatedly he had prevented the various armies of the Allies functioning. He fought tho Waterloo campaign on this well-defined strategy. Napoleon .knew that.Blucher, Mid Wellington wore already on Belgian jsil, Hβ ja&johed. tvibii great rapidity

past Liege and Namur to Ligny, and there defeated Blucher before lie had time to junction with Wellington at Quatre Bras. Still adhering to this lino of strategy, he dispatched Marshal Ney to occupy Quatre Bras, to take possession of the cross roads, and thus cut off Wellington's communications with Brussels. Before Ney got to Quatre Bras, however, the British had occupied it. Ney lost several thousand men'in dislodging Wellington's trQops, and then Wellington fell back to the plain of Waterloo to fight the decisive battle of the campaign. Thus it will be seen that Napoleon's strategy was not at fault in the Waterloo campaign, but Ney's mistake in not making greater efforts to occupy Quatre Bras before the British not only gave Wellington tho key to the whole position (the control of the cross roads), but made Napoleon resort' to. strategy of the second instance, at the eleventh hour, Ney having informed him that he had actually occupied Quatro Bras, whereas tho British held it in great strength. As at Leipzig, Napoleon's strategy of the second instance led to disaster.