The French Defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's Lack of Judgment
After abdicating to the island of Elba Napoleon Bonaparte returned to
France to rule the country once again. However after just 100 days
ruling he had suffered the final defeat and was aboard a British ship
returning to exile once more. He gambled everything on a battle which
if he had won would've have left in an extremely strong position in
Europe and would've changed the face of Europe as we know it today. He
was arguably the greatest military commander in modern times; he
achieved things that seemed impossible on many occasions. However this
deity of modern warfare and Emperor of France was beaten during a
battle, which everything was in his favour. To what extent it was his
fault? Or was napoleon controlled by circumstances?
Many historians make a very good case for the battle being Napoleons
fault. There evidence can be divided into tactical errors, personal
errors and political lack of judgement. However, many people see that
the loss was no fault of his; this evidence will again be split into
what napoleon did right during the battle (therefore not making it his
fault), the fact that he could have been beaten by a better enemy, and
other reasons accounting for the loss.
Tactically, Napoleon had often proven himself to be brilliant. Looking
into his previous battles the battle of the pyramids is a good example
of this. Facing elite Mameluke cavalry of Murad Bey[1], and hardened
desert veterans napoleon brilliantly commanded his troops, which
resulted in an emphatic victory. The Murad Bey army lost thousands of
men and horses. The French lost 29 men....
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...s and www.napoleon.org
support this view
[8] War Walks by Richard Holmes
[9] Napoleon and Wellington by Andrew Roberts
[10] The Napoleonic Wars by Gunther Rosenberg
[11] Letter by Ney to Duke de Oranto
[12] 1815 The Road To Waterloo by Gregor Dallas
[13] Napoleon and Wellington by Andrew Roberts
[14] Quoted from Napoleon and Wellington by Andrew Roberts
[15] 1815 The Road To Waterloo by Gregor Dallas and Waterloo: the one
hundred days by David Chandler focus heavily on Napoleons illness.
[16] Waterloo: the one hundred days by David Chandler suggests cancer
as a possibility
[17] War Walks by Richard Holmes
[18] The Napoleonic Wars by Gunther Rosenberg
[19] Napoleon and Wellington by Andrew Roberts
[20] Napoleon in conversation with Count Emmanuel
[21] From Information pack
Theodore argued that Napoleon sickness helped in a negative way throughout the campaign such that Napoleon wasn’t able lift the morale of his troops during the campaign. Throughout Napoleons campaign on the European front he has always was able to interact and make speeches in front of the whole of his army which helped bring the troops morale exponentially. However, during the campaign in Russia Napoleon was sick with an unknown disease that rendered him unable to interact for very long. Communication is the most important aspect in the war because without communication an army cannot be organized. An army’s morale also is very high at the beginning of the war but it will constantly fall as the war goes on, so a morale booster such as speeches and better accommodations would have helped the troop’s morale. Reiterating here that Napoleon should have brought more doctors which would have his army survive longer than it
Bibliography D. M. G. Sutherland, France 1789-1815 Revolution and Counterrevolution (London 1985). Tom Holmberg, “Napoleon and the French Revolution”, 1998, www.napoleonbonaparte.nl/html/body_nap_and_revolution.html. www.chesco.com/artman/napoleonbonaparte.html (Quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte). George Orwell, Animal Farm, Middlesex, England 1945. Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution, (New York, 1988).
How much does Napoleon owe to the French Revolution? Without the French Revolution, there would be no Napoleon. Napoleon’s life was forever affected and directed by the revolution in France. His relationship with France was complex, even from the very beginning of his life. Taking a path that began with his ultimate goal of ejecting France from his homeland of Corsica to ruling the nation he had so dearly despised.
Napoleon did not always follow through with his theories and ideas about the well being of France with actions, making him very hypocritical; there are however some contrasting points to suggest that not all his choices were insincere. Therefore his initial claims and theories were not completed, his actions contradicted his preliminary ideas. Consequently, Napoleon betrayed the ideas of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Napoleon was not only a great leader, he was also a military genius. As a military genius, Napoleon won many battles to expand France and was always welcomed back to France as a hero. His use of strategic warfare throughout many battles allowed him to be seen as a hero not only in France but all of Europe. Although his army was outnumbered by the Russians and Austrians on December 2, 1805, Napoleon's brilliant strategies resulted in a defeat of the opposing armies in the Battle of Austerlitz.
Napoleon was an outstanding military commander and enjoyed many successful campaigns. Napoleon maintained the Revolutionary syst...
Kreis, Steven. “Europe and the Superior Being: Napoleon.” The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. 13 May. 2004. 6 Dec. 2004.
Misused intelligence and underestimated opponents were at the heart of Napoleon?s downfall. This was clearly shown at Moscow when the Russians outwitted him by using their scorched earth policy and not meeting him in battle as they agreed. With careful planning, the Russian invasion could have gone a lot better and maybe not have led to Napoleon?s downfall.
With all the glory and the splendour that some countries may have experienced, never has history seen how only only one man, Napoleon, brought up his country, France, from its most tormented status, to the very pinnacle of its height in just a few years time. He was a military hero who won splendid land-based battles, which allowed him to dominate most of the European continent. He was a man with ambition, great self-control and calculation, a great strategist, a genius; whatever it was, he was simply the best. But, even though how great this person was, something about how he governed France still floats among people's minds. Did he abuse his power? Did Napoleon defeat the purpose of the ideals of the French Revolution? After all of his success in his military campaigns, did he gratify the people's needs regarding their ideals on the French Revolution? This is one of the many controversies that we have to deal with when studying Napoleon and the French Revolution. In this essay, I will discuss my opinion on whether or not was he a destroyer of the ideals of the French Revolution.
The war that was fought from July 1914 to November 1918 was the first ever World War. The casualty count reached into the millions. The Allied Powers and the Central Powers have fought many bloody and courageous battles like the first Battle of the Marne, Battle of Tannenberg, Battle of Somme, and the Battle of Verdun win the war.
June of 1812, Napoleon began his fatal Russian campaign in a landmark in the history of the destructive potential of warfare. All of continental Europe was under his control the invasion of Russia was an attempt to force Tsar. Alexander I to submit once again to the terms of a treaty that Napoleon had imposed upon him four years earlier In June 24, 1812 when napoleon's grande armée crossed the neman river in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army.
Napoleon Bonaparte has died at the age of 51, on May 5, 1821. His legacy will be remembered. He dramatically changed France and Europe. Napoleon obviously had a strong hold on his military in the beginning of the French Revolution. Nearing the end he didn’t do so well. He was exiled for a reason. Not only did he control his part of the government very heavily.
· One Admiral at that time exclaimed, "If he had an obtained an interview with His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, in half an hour they would have been the best friends in England! " · His contemporaries had no doubt about the charismatic quality of leadership. His great adversary Wellington said to him that the moral effect of his presence in the field and worth an additional force of 40,000 men to the French army. This he ascribed to Napoleon's dual position as both head of state and commander-in-chief, which gave him unparalleled control over events, but also to his great personal popularity with the army. · One of Napoleon's own generals explained this popularity by saying that it "was by familiarities that the Emperor made his soldiers adore him, but it was a means available to only to a commander whom frequent victories had made illustrious; any other general would have injured his reputation by it".
The Effectiveness of Napoleon III's Foreign Policy. In general terms, Napoleon's foreign policy was much less successful. than his domestic policy was. Generally speaking, the aims of his foreign policy were to present France as the champion of oppressed people throughout Europe, to create new countries, which would be grateful to France, to maintain good relations with Britain and to maintain a balance of power between Austria and Prussia.
Reasons for Napoleon's Defeat The Campaign of 1812 should have been another crusade for Napoleon, but he now faced 2 new policies that he had never faced before, the severe Russian winter and the notorious scorched-earth policy. On June 23, 1812 Napoleon's Grande Armee, over 500,000 men strong, poured over the Russian border. An equal amount of Russian forces awaited them. The result of the campaign was a surprise.