TACTICAL DOCTRINE--AN "EVOLUTIONARY" THREAD

Setanta,

All correct and proper to this point -- but what is the point?

Gustavus Adolphus and his doctrinal innovations made Sweden briefly the world's great military power. Success, especially military success, breeds emulation -- even in small things. American uniforms copied the French during the first part of the 19th century, but after Sedan our uniforms were clearly modeled after Prussian styles.

Changes in doctrine were fueled by the rising importance and improved nature of firearms, especially artillery. As carriages became lighter and tubes more reliable, artillery evolved from siege to battlefield use. Tactics appropriate to forces armed with arrows, slings, swords and the various pike/spear family of weapons just aren't appropriate when even primative firearms enter the equation. Change, or die.

BTW, it is so very nice to have someone who has done their homework to discuss these things with. You might enjoy On the Art of War, byFredrick the Great and translated by Jay Luvaas. I found it very interesting to read Freddy's take on the Art of War. Freddy, as I'm sure Setanta knows, was the direct heir to GA's doctrinal innovations.

OK, Boss, here ya go, i'm not even close to being done . . .

A few remarks are in order, simply for a cohesive historical picture. The famously drunken Danish King Christian had precipitated what became known as the Thirty Years War in 1618, by setting himself up as the champion of Protestant northern Europe. The Danes were rather quickly knocked out of the war, as a result of Christian's fabulous military incompetence, and the need to keep large forces in southern Sweden. This was the first of the three "phases" of this war, as they are known to modern historians. The Danish phase ends in 1629, with all of Protestant Europe prostrate before the Imperial armies, and the legendary Czech Commander Wallenstein laying waste to northern Germany. It is at this crucial juncture that the HRE, Ferdinand, displays that wonderful native talent of the Hapsburgs to screw up their main chance. He fired Wallenstein, for failing to capture Stralsund and failing to stop the Swedish landing.

At the time that Gustavus Adolphus landed near Stralsund in late 1630, there were many garrisons in northern Germany left behind by Wallenstein, but no large cohesive force to oppose him. The was a large Imperial force in Silesia, which blocked the direct route to Vienna, and threatened the flank of any advance through Bohemia or Moravia. (This Imperial occupation of Silesia, claimed as an hereditary possession of the Hohenzollerns, was the basis for the start of the War of the Austrian Succession, which i will discuss later.) GA's first move was to establish a large, secure base in northern Germany. This would later become Swedish Pomerania. It was based on Stralsund, which had held out against the Imperialist, and Stettin, a riverine port about 15 miles inland, which fell quickly, although not easily, to the Swedes. This ought to have been the first hint to Europe that in Gustavus Adolphus, they were seeing a new phenomenon. Later history demonstrates that Europe learned almost nothing from the Swedish phase of this war.

After his defeat of Mansfeld at Dessau in 1626, Wallenstein had marched his army into northern Germany like a plague of locusts. His nominal strength was 40,000 men. Including wives, children, camp followers, sutlers and all the other military parasites, the body of people who flowed over the German countryside like a plague amounted to easily 100,000, and probably more. By contrast, the Swedes allowed only a set number of wives to accompany each regiment, and children only above a certain age. Sutlers were allowed to join the army only if it was in camp for more than three days. No one else was allowed to join the army's train, and Drabants (the Swedish Royal Guards) rode the line of march as an informal field police to enforce the King's regulations. GA was not about to undertake a campaign based upon an assumption that he could obtain the army's needs by plunder, which is why he spent the autumn and winter building a base in northern Germany. This was unprecedented in European practice, and unknown since the days of the Roman Empire (and the Roman practice had been forgotten, if it could have ever been said to have been understood). He was in constant communication with the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony. These two worthy weasels had tried to keep a foot in either camp, and, of course, succeeded in pleasing no one. When GA tired of the diplomatic dance, and the spring grass pushed up to provide fodder for horses and oxen, he moved. Arriving in Brandenburg, his polite request to pass through Berlin and Potsdam was refused by the Elector of Brandenburg. The following morning, the citizens of Berlin awoke to find the entire Swedish artillery train emplaced to blast down the gates, and a messenger telling them they had until noon to permit the passage of the army. They didn't wait that long. To the astonishment of the Brandenburgers, and eventually of all of Europe, the Swedes marched peacefully through Berlin and Potsdam, without plunder or rapine. The lesson of the event was not, however lost on the Electoral and Hereditary Duke of Saxony, who quickly agreed not only to the passage of the Swedish army, but to provide 30,000 Saxons to join them.

GA marched further into Saxony, and arrived to confront the main Imperial army, under the command of Tilly, at Breitenfeld, near Leipsic. Pappenheim, the brilliant, and unreliable, Imperial cavalry commander launched an attack on the Swedish right, which was stopped, not without some difficulty, and then driven back by the Swedish cavalry. Tilly then reorganized his line, and began to move forward. The Saxons, apparently feeling they had done all that honor demanded of them in accompanying the Swedes thus far, decamped as fast as their little legs would carry them. Tilly sought to capitalize on this desertion, and moved his right wing at 90 degrees to the previous line of march, and sought to turn the Swedish flank. The Swedes, outnumbered now by at least 2 to 1, were nothing daunted, and GA, disdaining Pappenheim, whom he no longer considered a threat, wheeled his entire army to the left, to face Tilly, ignored the threat to his flank, and charged forward, overlapping Tilly's right, and rolling up his entire line.

So, just how could the Swedes, who had never faced a disciplined western European army (and "Old Father" Tilly's discipline was like iron), have accomplished such an unlooked for feat? The key is their use of modern innovation, and their tactical doctrine. The first factor was, of course, that their discipline was nothing inferior to Tilly's-and his discipline was largely unknown in other Imperial armies. The next factor was drill. The military colonist of southern Sweden, unlike all other military colonists in history, was expected to drill each week, and was provided all of his equipment and clothing, and all rations while on duty. New recruits in Germany, after the landing, were taken to depots where they were drilled as individuals in the manual of arms, and then drilled with convalescent Swedes in company, battalion and regimental formations (a practice continued in Germany right through the second world war). The organizational table of a Swedish regiment was similar to that of an Imperial regiment-but the regiment was almost nothing more than an administrative formation. The working formations of the Swedes were the battalions and the companies or troops. Each regiment was assigned one section (two or three guns) of artillery, and usually two sections. GA encouraged experimentation with field artillery, and by the time the Swedes landed in Germany, two- or three-pounders were assigned to each regiment. The plan was, initially to protect the flanks of the regiment, as the halberdiers and pikemen of Maurice's formations had done. Pikemen were much reduced in Swedish regiments, and GA eventually eliminated them altogether. His penchant for experimentation also lead to the adoption of the musket, which made Swedish firepower more accurate than their Imperial opponents'. Finally, GA organized his troops in formations three men deep, giving a Swedish regiment about ten times the frontage of the preferred formation of the Imperialists. The Swedes relied upon firepower to preserve themselves on the battlefield. Seldom defeated and never broken at any time in the war, Swedish infantry badly punished even those who forced them to withdraw.

Additionally, GA used what the French would "re-invent" just prior to their revolution, the mixed order formation. The battalions of a regiment would form, two battalions in line, with the third in column behind, and the regimental artillery on the flanks and in the intervals. Swedish cavalry would sit at rest behind the artillery, and move forward to screen them as the limbered to move. Given the high level of drill-efficiency of the Swedish troops, and the Germans who were added to their formations during the war, their rate of fire was much higher than their opponents, and their ability to change formation and front on the battlefield must have seemed like magic to the bewildered Imperialists. In fact, Tilly's regiments were still filing into place and forming up on what should have been the Swedish flank when the Swedes were seen to be facing them, and advancing in line. This partakes of "divergent operational axes" which was one of the three legs of the French tactical doctrine developed by St. Germaine and de Broglie in the 1780's. The artillery on the flanks and in the intervals of the formations of the Swedish line at Breitenfeld had combined with the then astonishing fire power of the infantry to badly punish Pappenheim's precipitate attack, and the cavalry assigned to support each section of guns had formed and charged the Imperalist to drive them. By the time Tilly reacted, the Swedes were back in formation, with the dead and wounded carried to the rear, and ammunition distributed (and probably laughing at the Saxons who were just then falling all over themselves to get back to Dresden).

And how did Europe react to this wonderful new force suddenly in their midst, as though dropped from heaven? The best answer would be, not at all. Gustavus Adolphus' new army, with it's new doctrine, was so radical, the changes could not be discerned by their contemporaries. When i continue, I'll trace how this was eventually recreated and debuted a second time in the wars of the French Revolution.

Okay, I'll stand silent while you prepare the battlefield. I think I know where you are going, and if so I imagine we have drawn similar conclusions.

It'll be a while, though, Boss, so please do add your remarks and observations.

Great Setanta! Out of curiousity, will you be covering:
Swiss mercenaries (pikemen IIRC)
Conflicts in Italy, what with native condottiere (not sure I spelled that last one correctly) and foreign companies (i.e. the White Company).

And a brief aside - a few months ago I had the pleasure of reading The White Company and Sir Nigel by A. Conan Doyle. Highly entertaining historical fiction set (roughly) in the same period as this thread. I heartily recommend them if you haven't read them already.

CZ, you should put in your contribution on those subjects--i've already reached the War of the Austrian Succession in the course of my personal madness here, and will be trudging onward . . .

The last phase of the Thirty Years War is known as the French phase. At the insistence of Cardinal Richlieu, the King gave monetary subsidies to the Swedes, and, eventaully committed troops of their own. The Spaniards attacked France in the Low Countries as a result, as well as making an abortive attempt to invade Germany. Two important commanders came from this effort-Condé and Tourenne. In 1643, Condé defeated the Spaniards at Rocroi, two weeks after the death of Louis XIII, while the five-year-old Louis XIV mounted a shakey throne-after the embarrassing defeats of François I by Cordoba in northern Italy almost 150 years earlier, this was the signal for a resurgence of French military power.

There is quite a lot of military history which i will skip over now. This thread is, after all, about the evolution of tactical doctrine, not simply an historical recitation. There were no military innovations worth mentioning in the civil wars in France, known as the Wars of the Fronde (referring to the sling, a preferred weapon of rebellious peasants), nor in the wars fought by Louis XIV against Holland, with the exception of the introduction of the bayonette-which was an innovation in equipment, not doctrine. As the Imperialists had charged with pike and sword, and the Swedes with sword, after the ranks closed and the last muskets has been fired, the introduction of the bayonette was not as significant as one might think, nor was it to be the terror weapon it was claimed to be in the late 17th century.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, although such stellar performers as the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy were in command of major forces, tactical practice continued as it had before Gustavus Adolphus had arrived. European armies incorporated the mustket, and later, the bayonette, but armies still faced one another in parallel order (i.e., two lines spread out facing each other, usually with cavalry at the flanks), and i know of no one, before Maurice de Saxe, who placed artillery in the intervals between infantry units-in fact, it would have been considered bad form to have had intervals between the battalions. Both Marlborough and Eugene exploited the parallel order to fix their enemies in place, while they exhausted their main line, and drew their reserves to the flank, and finishing by punching a hole in the enemy's center-this was not tactical innovation, however, it was simply taking advantage of the dull-witted.

One of the most colorful figures in European history is Frederick Augustus, the Electoral and Hereditary Duke of Saxony, and the elected King of Poland. Apart from suckering Peter Alexeevitch into the Great Northern War, and introducing the Russians as an ominous new factor in European politics, he is of no interest to a military discussion. He was reliably reported to have paid pensions to more than 350 bastard children, however, one of whom is of interest in this discussion-his eldest child, Moritz von Saxe, immortal in history as Maurice, Comte de Saxe and Marshall of France. At age 23, a few years after the death of Louis XIV, Saxe arrived in France in the command of a company of German mercenaries. He had had his first experience of battle at Malplaquet, under Eugene and Marlborough, and it would hard to imagine a more horrific introduction into the gentle arts of the infantry.

Saxe served with distinction in the War of the Polish Succession, 1733-38, and, at the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession, he captured Prague in a brilliantly executed coup de main, obviating a costly and protracted siege. Made a Marshall of France, he commanded the French at Fontenoy, his most brilliant effort. In his book, Mes Reveries, he discussed the use of mixed order formation, à la Gustavus, as well as the use of skirmishers and artillery sections to support the infantry. At Fontenoy, he lured on the "Pragmatic Army" shamelessly-placing his back to a river, he hid battalions in wood lots, and the village of Fontenoy, and awaited the inevitable "thin red line." With clouds of skirmishers in front of the main line, he confused and slowed his opponents; with battalions operating on distinct operational axes, he was able to strike the advancing English infantry in front and on flank at the same time. His mixed order formations allowed the skirmishers to find cover when the enemy infantry neared, and the light field pieces in the intervals badly shredded every English battalion which attempted to assault his line. In two more equally bloody battles, he eventually drove the Anglo-Dutch-Austrian army from Flanders, and gave the French a very good bargaining position at Aix-la-Chapelle.

But the War of the Austrian Succession was not fought only in Flanders and Bohemia. In fact, these campaigns were the "children" of the two Silesian Wars. In 1740, the king of Prussia died, leaving as his heir a true child of the Enlightenment (in despite of his father), Frederick II. Less than a month later, the HRE, Charles VI died, leaving his estate to his daughter, Maria Theresa. You may recall that i mentioned the Imperial occupation of Silesia at the end of the Danish phase of the Thirty Years War. Well, the Austrians wouldn't give it back (Charles VI received 25% of all his revenues from this one province). Although they had agreed to do so, they reneged. When Frederick II came to power, and Charles died-he declared his intention to re-take Silesia, although not sufficiently far in advance as to give the Austrians time to prepare a proper welcome for him. At Mollwitz, his army won, although he rode forward with a battalion of infantry, was swept away when they panicked, and learned a valuable lesson about his place on the battlefield. I personally do not regard him as a military genius, but unlike the great majority of military leaders, he could learn, and he did. He was very ably supported by his brothers, Ferdinand of Brunswick and Prince Henry-rarely has any family produced such a set of militarily competent brothers. They would be badly needed in the battles to come, as well. After Mollwitz, although sometimes defeated, he never again lost touch with the tactical situation, nor lost control of his army-with the one exception of the Battle of Prague-and then, with Prince Henry, Moritz and Seydlitz all attacking on different axes, the result was very happy for the Prussians. Had Frederick commanded armies such as those who fought for France in the wars of the revolution, and later for Napoleon, he might have achieved more brilliant successes. As it was, the armies of his day, his own included, simply did not move fast enough to carry out the plans he conceived. Worse for Prussia, his ability to win two wars against Austria in the First and Second Silesian wars, and to survive the combined attack of France, Austria and Russia in the Seven Years War, left his successors convinced that they shouldn't change a thing-which was to prove disastrous for them at Jena and Auerstadt when facing the new Grande Armée. Frederick's greatest contribution was what is known as the "oblique attack." This is simplified precursor to the use of separate operational axes, and a refinement of the main tactic of Marlborough and Eugene. At Hohenfriedburg, Frederick achieved the the greatest success in using this tactic, ironically, at a time when it was just forming in his mind. In this battle, he also displayed his greatest military talent, the ability to improvise based on battlefield conditions. Simply put, the attack in oblique order places the smallest possible force which can accomplish its purpose in parallel order, to "fix in place" the enemy line. When ideally executed, the schwerpunkt, the crucial point of attack against the enemy's line is then assaulted by infantry battalions which have been "stacked up," concentrated to achieve the maximum effect in the shortest time. At Hohenfriedburg, Frederick's troops moved out in the darkness before dawn; but, encountering a strong force of Austrian cavalry with infantry support on some heights over which the main infantry assault was to have occurred, the line was quickly wheeled, and while the Austrians were masked by cavalry and infantry, the Prussians fell upon the Saxon infantry as they were struggling to get into formation in the early dawn hours. The route of the Austro-Saxon army was total, and the entire affair was over by 9:00 a.m. Frederick developed the concept of the "oblique attack" later in his career, but never achieved the effect so totally and so successfully as at Hohenfriedburg.

The other great contribution of Frederick was the organization of his national resources to support the army in time of war. This is not the place to discuss this topic, but it is important to point out that Napoleon's greatest talent was not military either, but organizational-he was one of history's greatest administrative executives-and he was a great admirer of Frederick, from whom he learned much about organizing civilian resources.

Excellent posts, Setanta. This thread bears watching. I perceive a point rising in your posts, and eagerly await further developments.



timber

During the Seven Years War, Frederick was fighting for the very survival of Prussia. He, with the aid of Prince Henry, campaigned against and dealt with the Austrians and Russians. Ferdinand of Brunswick took command of the Hannoverians, Westphalians and a handful of Prussians and English who opposed the French. At Minden, he achieved a solid victory over the French, from which they never entirely recovered in the course of the war.

With the end of that war, and the defeat of France both in Germany and in North America, followed by the French experience in the American Revolution, the officers of the French army felt that they were losing their grip-the French army was certainly no longer the great power which had defied all of Europe in the reign of Louis XIV. The Minister for War under Louis XVI, St. Germain, resolved to correct this situation, and the French made an incredible effort to completely overhaul their doctrine, equipment and training. In Marshall de Broglie, he had a willing ally, and an officer with a great deal of experience on campaign and on the battlefield. During the War of the Austrian Succession, the French had successfully invaded Piedmont (northwest Italy) by use of a broad area campaign technique. Nine separate columns had approached passes in the mountains, with instructions to test the defense. If the defense were found to be formidable, they were to leave a screening force, and move to their left, to the line of march of their "neighbor." By this method, three of the passes were either forced quickly, or crossed unopposed. The result, a strong, fresh French Army in the field, moving rapidly on Turin, brought about the collapse of the Kingdom of Sardinia when it had just barely entered the war. The lessons of Frederick II rapidly shifting troops from east to west as the situation demanded during the Seven Years War was not lost on de Broglie, either. Administrative measures were St. Germains forté, however, and between the two, they developed the formal staff system which had never previously existed in a European army. Marshall de Broglie worked on the problems of staff coordination at the lower levels, what we would consider the divisional level, as well as the tactical disposition of troops on the field of battle. St. Germain developed the concept of small, semi-independent armies, which evolved into the corps of a larger army. Both of them considered the lessons learned from Gustavus, de Saxe and Frederick about the tactical use of formations-and the formal doctrine of the mixed order formations which had been presaged by the Swedes in the 17th Century were revived. Additionally, they refined Fredericks "stacked battalions" in the oblique attack, and developed the three types of columns used to quickly move troops, or to hold them in readiness, which made the Napoleonic battlefield such a confusing place for their opponents. The three types of column were the colonne de marche-the marching column, which is self-explanatory; the colonne d'attente-the waiting column, in which troops were held in a formation broader than a marching column, but not strung out in line, from this formation, the battalion could quickly get back into marching order, or form line for an advance; finally, there was the colonne d'assaut, the assault column, which differed little from the colonne d'attente, it simply allowed the commander to take advantage of an opening, and throw his troops into the enemy's line in the Frederician manner. At various times in the course of a battle, an division might have some battalions in line, some in column-any one of the various columns available-and some in skirmish order. The skirmisher had not been used by European armies other than that of de Saxe, but the benefits of this cloud of troops in obscuring the movements of the main body of troops, and disrupting the evolution of the opponent's line had become clear from the French experience in North America, both in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolution. At this crucial juncture, French manufacture handed them a plum-truly, a gem. Gribreauval had done studies of the muzzle velocities and trajectories of artillery ordinance with variations in the size and weight of the gun tube, and the powder charge. He confidently announced, and was able to prove, that half the traditional powder charge would produce the same result in range and impact-gun tubes need not be the monsters which they previously had been. Whereas before, a six-pounder was likely to be the largest gun on the field of battle, and three-pounders the closet thing to a mobile gun available, the French were now able to dispose of 12-pounder guns with a combined tube and carriage weight less than that of the old fashioned 6-pounders. This became the famous 12-pounder, brass "Napoleon," in use for eighty years-a damned long run for any weapon of its type.

Finally, in studying the remarkable changes of formation of Swedish armies in the Thirty years war, the advice of de Saxe in Mes Reveries and the movements of Fredericks troops in the oblique attack, they evolved the concept of separate operational axes. When this was combined with regularized order of battle formations (battalion, regiment, division, corps, army), using the wide area campaign techniques first applied in the invasion of Piedmont, the effect was to prove devastating for France's opponents-ironically, after the government and monarchy responsible for the reforms had been swept away by the revolution. When Napoleon was an adolescent student at Brienne, these reforms were just being introduced. By the time Napoleon began his Italian campaign in 1797, French armies and officers had been well schooled by experience in all the new techiques. In Bertier, Napoleon found the perfect neurotic to be his chief of staff, and to pull together all of the strings which would unite the division and corps staffs into a well-oiled machine. In Augereau, Dessaix, Lannes, Soult, MacDonald-and an entire host of divisional commanders, he had the officers necessary to execute the battlefield ballet which the new doctrines envisioned. In Davout, he found, and did not appreciate, the one officer who could put it all together by himself and make it work. The greatest expression of the entire new doctrine was played out by Davout at Auerstadt. The Prussians had advanced in three columns, and their army was moving in the same cumbersome and slow formations which had always frustrated Fredericks plans for lightening attacks. Napoleon, at Jena, with the bulk of La Grande Armée, demolished a column of about 35,000 Prussians. At Auerstadt, to the north, Davout disposed of hardly more than 20,000 troops, and met the main Prussian column of 45,000 or more troops. He fought them to a standstill until early afternoon, when, receiving a paltry 2000 cavalry reinforcements, he considered the time to be ripe, and went over to the offensive. He shattered the Prussian lines, and drove them from the field as though they were chaff before the thresher. His use of mixed order formations doomed every heroic and witless assault by the Prussian infantry, and even stopped Blucher cold in his tracks when he launched a Prussian "charge at speed." Obviously, we've been dealing with my opinions throughout-in my opinion, the greatest practitioner of "Napoleonic" warfare was Marshall Davout.

OK, I'm done now . . . no, no really i am . . .

Well, Setanta, you did not take this where I thought you would. I had not expected you to close your exposition pre-Waterloo. I suppose I must content myself with waitng for you to deal more fully with Bonapart. But again, sir, well researched and cogently written.

I concur in your assessment of Davout as the ablest of Napoleon's commanders. Had he been at Waterloo instead of back in Paris, the battle would have gone differently. Among other things, I doubt Davout would have waited for the ground to dry ... certainly at least not until one in the afternoon. Davout would have never allowed Ney to shatter the unsupported cavalry against the British Squares. Davout would certainly have prepped the area of attack with massed artillery then have exploited the breach with a massed charge of infantry, probably using The Old Guard to accomplish the job. And, unlike Ney, on taking the British batteries, Davout would certainly have spiked the tubes and ruined their carriages. That Ney failed to do so when he had the opportunity is incomprehensible.

In fact, had it been Davout who met The Allies at Quatre Bras on the 16th, it is likely there would not have followed the set-piece battle of the 18th in the first place. With superior "tactical doctrine" ... essentially his understanding and employment of combined arms operations (your 'mixed force concept, Setanta'), Davout would have dealt with William of Orange as decisively as earlier he had delt with Brunswick at Auerstadt. Wellington would have been brought to engagement without benefit of prepared positions or the manpower and materiel which arrived over the 17th and the morning of the 18th, and Blucher would have been no factor whatsoever in the main battle.

Now as for Grouchy and his reticence to press the Prussians following Ligny ... well, never mind. Even had Napoleon won at Waterloo, the best he could have accomplished thereafter would have been to spend his army just as futiley in the next battle, or the next. The Allies were too strong, Napoleon's forces were, apart from a few elite, veteran units, an ill-trained and inexperienced, very much smaller body which, as had been its predecessor in Russia, was operating at a crippling logistic disadvantage.

"The Hundred Days" might have been 110, or even 150, but there would have been no renewed empire.



timber

I'd have to agree with you about Boney's prospects of regaining his throne, Timber.

I finished my discursus with the advent of "Napoleonic" warfare because an earlier post in a different thread had suggested this thread, and i was compelled to review the evolution of tactical doctrine from the days of parallel order, "at the push of the pike" style of warfare to what the French termed l'ordre mixte, and which is identified today, as you point out, as combined arms.

I am hoping that others will come here, not simply to dispute what i've written--which would not disturb me--but to carry the thread further forward. I feel less comfortable in discussing late 19th and 20th century history, because i've not made that a particular area of study. I started with ancient history about 45 years ago, and feel i've got it pretty well covered to about 1750, although there are still huge gaps i need to fill in. Although i've always taken an interest in history outside Europe, i've concentrated my diligent study on that continent (all of this proceeds from a small American boy wondering "Where do we come from?" in a cultural sense).

I would be delighted to see lengthy contributions to this post to carry the review forward in time.

Oh, and as to Waterloo, your point about the quality of the French army is well taken--but i would go further back. At Wagram, both Lannes (Napoleon's best battlefield leader, in the tactical sense) and la Grande Armée of old died on the field of battle. The 113ième Legère came out of line in the command of it's senior corporal. That was probably the most extreme case, but all across that stricken field, the company and field grade officers and the veteran NCO's who made the application of the St. Germain/de Broglie tactical doctrine possible were lying dead or horribly maimed. The army never recovered. At Leipsic, as at Waterloo, Napoleon (never, in my opinion, a very good tactical commander) simply threw huge formations in column at the enemy--and, of course, the slaughter was horrible. In strategic maneouver, Napoleon had few peers--in battlefield control and tactical decision and reaction, most majors in his army were better.

It would seem between us we've provided the start and end points for a discussion of Napoleonic Tactical Doctrine, Setanta. I would very much enjoy seeing the discussion fleshed out. I can't believe there aren't a few Napoleon Buffs here on A2k; we must hunt them down and drag them to the field!

I agree with your impression of Nappy's tactical abilities. As an administrator and a strategist, he was unparallelled in his time. An "In-the-Dirt-and-Smoke" Combat Comander he certainly was not. He knew how to move Politicians and Armys adroitly, but was more inclined to use force than finesse on the battlefield. Any number of bloody examples exist of his battering a line with repeated frontal attacks as opposed to exploiting the advantages of Combined Arms and "Fire-and-Maneouver". Of course, those concepts didn't really begin to come to prominence until the American Civil War, and it was Manstien who made an artform of "Schwerpunkt" ... that is precisely what "Blitzkrieg" was all about.


timber

Intersting point about the Civil War, Boss--a young officer who started at the bottom and rose to prominence was Francis Barlow. One of his fellow officers said that ". . . he made skirmishing an art form . . ." This was a man who fully exploited the increased range and accuracy of the rifled musket . . .

timber,

My brother is on this site and might be able to take on the Napoleon part, but he is being deployed shortly and won't have time for a few months.

Craven, my best wishes to your brother. I hope his deployment is boring and uneventful, apart from a bit of sightseeing and perhaps a little fraternizing with amenable locals.



timber

I've just come in from the studio for supper, and stopped off here to see what's gone on since I left this afternoon. Dinners getting cold, and even if I don't work much more this evening, I need to clean brushes, etc. This will have to be short, and probably pretty rough.

1. Though all of Napoleon's Marshal's can be criticized -- perhaps Ney even more than most, the responsibility never fully left Napoleon's own shoulders. Napoleon didn't encourage independant thinking, and when he was far from the battlefield reverses were common. Let's not forget that Napoleon was on the field, and totally in control of his forces at Waterloo. It was Napoleon who hesitated and postponed the action in hopes that he would have a dry field. It was Napoleon who chose the tactics, and sent the Old Guard directly into Wellington's guns.

2. Both you gentlemen have criticized Napoleon's battlefield competence, but let's not forget that he won often against superior adversaries. Some of Napoleon's battles remain textbook examples, and will be studied by for many more years. Napoleon was at his finest near the beginning of his rise to fame. During the Italian Campaign Napoleon's quickness, and ability to surprise made him a formidable foe. He had a fine feel for the terrain and was able to use it to his advantage while others floundered about. Of course, his ability to inspire and motivate his troops was phenomenal --- especially when you consider that he abandoned them during the Egyptian Campaign, during the retreat from Moscow, and finally after Waterloo.

As Napoleon rose to prominence and power he was able to command larger formations and armies. As the size of his forces increased, Napoleon gradually abandoned the manuever and suprise oriented tactics that had served so well earlier. Napoleon like the pleasures of the flesh, and as he got older, heavier, and more frequently ill, he became less and less the dynamic, original thinker he had been in youth. These changes in how Napoleon conducted battles were accentuated after Moscow.

The loss of virtually the whole of the Grand Army was catostrophic. First he threw away some of his finest in frontal assaults at Borodino, and then he hesitated too long in Moscow. After that Napoleon was always dependant upon relatively raw, untrained and unseasoned recruits. They did their best, and that was often good enough when Napoleon had one of his good days. But they weren't the veterans who had brought victory repeatedly to France and Napoleon. At the same time, Wellington and the Allies were becoming stronger.

Jomini and Clauswitz have trained generations of soldiers on the Napoleonic example. He was a superior organizer and was able to see the big picture more detail than most commanders before, or since. He was also a tragically flawed human being.

I like your analysis of Napoleon's fading powers, Boss, and heartily endorse it. . . but i will probably continue to deprecate his tactical abilities . . . i have noted that i believe him to be one of the finest generals who ever maneouvered an army, but i do not think he was at his best in the front lines--and he showed this tendancy to just throw his troops at the enemy as early as Lodi, another of what Wellington called a "close run," with him trying to force the bridge repeatedly . . . the arrival of Desaix had more to do with the Austrian rout than did Napoleon's repeated attempts to force the bridge. I agree with your assessment of the devotion of his troops, although i think he had destroyed the best elements of the army at Wagram, three years before Borodino. I would not quibble in the least with Wellington's assessment that Napoleon's presence was ". . . worth 40,000 men in the balance . . ."--the common soldier has always understood that his survival is better assured under a decisive commander who usually wins battles, and you certainly can't deny that as a description of Napoleon.

Again we are in agreement on all the essentials. I certainly agree that the losses at Wagram were very, very serious. However, Napoleon could and did pretty much recover from that. From Borodino and the long walk home there was no real chance of recovery.

The man had so damn much potential, but he just didn't have the character of Washington. All of Europe, except the monarchs and their lackies, hailed Napoleon as a champion of Liberty. He returned stability to France, and put it's economy back together. He developed a Code of law that has endured and been adopted all around the world. He valued intellect and creativity, and encouraged the development of individual talents. But he couldn't control himself. He couldn't accept the idea that he might be wrong while others were right. He couldn't trust the People.

Such a pity.