and work out how an enemy was likely to deploy on the ground. He
particularly liked manoeuvring an opponent on to ground where
geographical features like mountains and rivers told against an overall
enemy numerical superiority. His frequent use of the 'centre position'
was possible only because of his eye for landscape. He also liked to
conceal part of his forces behind natural topographical features, such as
woods or hills, and then unleash them to the surprise and consternation
of the enemy.
However, for all his military genius, Napoleon was never a commander
in the same league as Alexander, Hannibal or Tamerlane. His chessplay
ing qualities were never absolute, for an imp of the perverse manifested
itself in a deliberate decision to leave certain things to chance, almost as if
he were testing his own abilities at the limit or superstitiously pushing his
luck to see how far it would run. Side by side with his mathematical
propensity went a certain empirical pragmatism, summed up in the
following statement: 'Tactics, evolution and the sciences of the engineer
and the artillery officer may be learned from treatises, much as in the
same way as geometry, but the knowledge of the higher branches of the
art of war is only to be gained by experience and by studying the history
of man and battles of great leaders. Can one learn in a grammar to
compose a book of the Iliad, or one of Corneille's tragedies?'
Napoleon's military talents were essentially practical rather than
theoretical. It has been suggested that he never put his ideas on strategy
and tactics on paper so as to keep his generals (and later his marshals) in
the dark but the truth is that he was not much of an innovator anyway.
Initially he got most of his ideas from books and did not change his
approach very much. Napoleon himself made no great claims as a military
theoretician. 'I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which
I did not know at the beginning' is a statement that has sometimes raised
eyebrows but, self-mocking cynicism aside, he was being starkly realistic.
The obvious snag was that his enemies would learn his methods and
devise counter measures.
From a military point of view, two propositions about the Italian
campaign seem warranted. His great skill notwithstanding, Napoleon was
lucky. He did not have to build a military machine from scratch,
inherited a potentially excellent army, and then fought indifferent
generals. He took many gambles at long odds, notably at Arcola, where
the French army could and should have been trapped in the swamps.
The men he faced - Beaulieu, Wurmser and Alvinzi - did not have his
burning will to win; they were eighteenth-century generals, essentially
amateurs ranged against a professional. But the element of luck can be
marcin
(Marcin)
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