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

Questions

1. What were the main characteristics of eighteenth-century warfare?


2. What was the Napoleonic way of war? Identify its systemic strengths and
   weaknesses.


3. What is meant by charismatic leadership? Answer with reference to Napoleon.


4. Why, ultimately, did Napoleon fail?

Further reading

D. Chandler The Campaigns of Napoleon(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967).
O. Connelly The Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1792–1815(London: Routledge,
2006).
C. J. Esdaile The Wars of Napoleon(London: Longman, 1995).
D. Gates The Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815(London: Arnold, 1997).
P. Griffith The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789–1802(London: Greenhill Books,
1998 ).
R. Muir Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon(New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 199 8 ).
G. E. Rothenberg The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon(Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 19 8 0).
—— Napoleon’s Great Adversary: Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814(New
York: Sarpendon, 1995).
S. Wilkinson The French Army before Napoleon(Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1991).

From limited war to national war 49

Key points

1. War and warfare were transformed between 1792 and 1 8 15.


2. Revolutions have a dynamic all their own. They begin with high ideals, but
   conclude with (military) dictatorship, as in France in 1799, when Napoleon
   staged a coup and made himself First Consul.


3. Napoleon was not a great military innovator. His skill lay in the superior use
   that he made of the French Army, a truly national force that he reorganized and
   made his own as the Grande Armée.


4. Napoleon virtually defines what is meant by the concept of the charismatic
   leader.


5. France educated its enemies in what constituted ‘best practice’ in modern
   warfare. In long wars, military competence tends to equalize.


6. Napoleon’s lethal failures were strategic and political. Because he could accept
   no limit to his power, he was unable to establish a European order tolerable for
   other states. His military victories were strategically meaningless and politi-
   cally irrelevant, because they simply led him on to new adventures.