Yet the brilliance of Napoleon lay in his understanding of human
psychology. He realized that at root human beings are driven by money
but that they hate to admit this is what actually motivates them and are
therefore grateful to leaders who can mystify and obfuscate the quest for
filthy lucre. The best possible scenario is that of the conquistadores
where the quest for riches could be rationalized as the desire to serve
God. Napoleon could not use religion in this way, but he spoke of glory,
immortality, the judgement of posterity. Hence the swords of honour
and, eventually, the institution of the Legion of Honour. 'A man does not
have himself killed for a few halfpence a day or for a petty distinction.
You must speak to the soul in order to electrify the soul.'
On the Italian campaign Napoleon really learned human psychology.
He realized that men liked to be rewarded in their pockets while being
appealed to in their minds and hearts. This was why, many years later,
when he came to establish the marshalate, he took great care to combine
the most elaborate titles, duchies, princedoms and even thrones with the
most elaborate emoluments of 'benefices'. And that was why, while
conniving at the looting of his old sweats, he liked to flatter and cajole
them. With his amazing memory for detail, he could remember the names
of obscure rankers and make them feel ten feet tall by an appreciative
word. The men actually liked his habit of tweaking their ears in parades,
for this was a general who could deliver on his promises.
For such a man, who rewarded them, understood them and even
remembered their names, the troops could not do too much. Some of his
victories were possible only because of a highly committed army, at the
peak of morale. During the Rivoli campaign, Massena's division fought at
Verona on 13]anuary, marched all night to reach Rivoli early on the 14th,
fought all day against the Austrians, marched all night and all day on the
15th towards Mantua and completed their epic of endurance with a battle
at La Favorita on the 16th. In 120 hours they had fought three battles and
marched 54 miles.
Yet above all credit for the triumph in the Italian campaign must go to
Napoleon's own superb talents as strategist, tactician and military
thinker. Napoleon liked to avoid frontal attacks, which were costly in lives
and rarely yielded a clear-cut result, in favour of enveloping attack on the
flanks. 'It is by turning the enemy, by attacking his flanks, that battles are
won' was a favourite saying. The enveloping type of battle partly broke
down the age-old distinction between strategy and tactics, for it was
planned well in advance yet adapted to circumstance. The key to
Napoleon's success in his favourite battle-plan (the so-called mouvement
sur les derrieres) was his reorganization of the army into a corps system.
marcin
(Marcin)
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