stance in early I8og. On I I February Roederer recorded a conversation
with the Emperor in which he stated: 'I have only one passion, only one
mistress - France. I sleep with her, she never lets me down, she pours
out her blood and treasure; if l need soo,ooo men, she gives them to me.'
This was boastful self-delusion. His original aim was to have 26o,ooo
troops in Germany and I so,ooo in Italy by the time war broke out; in fact
he managed a combined total of 275,000 in the two theatres. Already
about a tenth of all conscripted Frenchmen deserted and hid in the
mountains. In any case, about half the Grande Armee was non-French,
being composed of Belgians, Italians, Dutch, Germans and special mixed
units resembling the later French Foreign Legion. In Napoleon's army of
I 809 could be found Swiss, Polish, Croat, Albanian, Greek, Portuguese,
Spanish, Lithuanian, Dutch, Irish and even negro units. Pace Clausewitz,
this was no longer a citizen army or a levee en masse but a professional
army with interests distinct fr om those of the French nation or even the
class (the peasantry) fr om which it was mostly recruited. Once it was
possible for conscripted citizens to purchase substitutes, the Grand Army
filled up with the dregs of society and became more like a traditional
flotsam-and-jetsam host of the ancien regime type. Had Napoleon read his
Machiavelli carefully, he might have spotted the danger. The one clear
element of continuity with the past was the Guard, most of which was
withdrawn from Spain in the spring of I8og.
Napoleon made three bad errors at the beginning of the I8og
campaign. He assumed that the Austrians would send large forces to Italy
and make their main effort there, as in past wars. He appointed Berthier
commander-in-chief, with Davout, Massena and Oudinot immediately
below him, and himself remained in Paris; this curious decision is usually
interpreted as a desire to extract maximum propaganda advantage when
the Austrian blow fell, by presenting it to the French people as a wholly
unexpected sneak attack. Berthier, though, proved a disastrous choice as
field commander and could not even keep abreast of the flow of orders
from the Emperor. But Napoleon's worst mistake once again revealed his
military Achilles' heel: failure to take the weather into account. Having
campaigned on the Danube in autumn and winter, he was wholly
unprepared fo r the weather-driven physical aspects of the battles he
would face there in spring and summer.
On 9 April the Austrians began their invasion of Bavaria, without a
formal declaration of war and six days earlier than Napoleon expected. At
first Archduke Charles and his I2o,ooo-strong army carried all before
them: through Berthier's incompetence the French forces were hopelessly
marcin
(Marcin)
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