War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

With respect to artillery, again little had altered technically for many decades. But the
mobility of French guns was enhanced by a reduction in weight, and a useful standard-
ization of calibres had been effected. The guns fired principally solid iron roundshot
which killed by bouncing along the ground; grapeshot, which killed by dispersing pieces
of scrap metal; and case-shot, which killed by spreading musket balls from a canister
which disintegrated on firing. The range of Napoleon’s artillery was not much greater
than 1,000 yards, but the Emperor, himself a former artilleryman of course, came to rely
ever more heavily on his artillery train. A hallmark of his battlefield style was to assemble
and employ a ‘grand battery’ of 100-plus guns. The effect of a cannonade from such an
assemblage could be both physically and morally devastating.
Napoleon also inherited the late eighteenth-century innovation of light infantry units.
These troops would be employed as skirmishers to protect the attack columns and
especially to keep the enemy’s skirmishers at a respectful distance, as well as to harass
and shake the confidence of soldiers in the firing line. Unlike the British Army, with its
excellent, if slow to load, Baker rifle, French skirmishers, the voltigeurs, were not issued
with rifles. To repeat, Napoleon had little interest in the small arms of his army and,
indeed, he represented a point of view which held that a dependence by infantry upon
their firepower could harm their will and determination to close with the enemy.
As for his cavalry, the arm which because of its aristocratic connections had suffered
most in the upheavals of the early 1790s, Napoleon employed it principally for recon-
naissance, to screen and hide the direction of his army’s march, and as the instrument of
destruction to annihilate a routed foe.
So much for the military instrument that Napoleon inherited. What did he do with it?
Wherein lay his military genius? What follows is a terse summary of the key features of
the Emperor’s military style.

From limited war to national war 43

Box 3.2The Napoleonic way of warfare

1. The corps would march independently for speed and ease of self-supply, but
   fight united. Napoleon’s army thus moved faster than the enemy, and typically
   much faster than the enemy expected.


2. Each corps was commanded by a trusted marshal or general (the marshalate
   comprised a wide range of talent, though the average was certainly high).


3. Ideally, army corps would march in a rough ‘box’ or a diamond formation, so
   that each corps could support the rest and the entire formation could change
   direction easily.


4. Napoleon did not simply manoeuvre; rather, he always manoeuvred for battle.
   He fused operational art and tactics.


5. He would seek to outflank his enemy and threaten its line of communications
   and retreat. This was known as the manoeuvre sur les derrières, a tactic he
   employed no fewer than thirty times between 1796 and 1 8 15.


6. Sometimes Napoleon would use the outflanking threat to induce an enemy
   fearful for his communications to weaken his front. This enabled the French
   to strike straight for the centre of the enemy’s army and achieve a decisive