"Osprey: French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792–1815" Topic

Shane, I hate to do this to you but someday someone will have to make the effort to acquaint you with the facts. May as well try now… So please just make the effort to read the relevant part of the Waterloo dispatch written by Lord W on the evening of the Battle: "I should not do justice to my feelings, or to Marshal Blucher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I recieved from them. The operation of General Bulow upon the enemy's flank was a most decisive one; and even if I had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire, if his attacks should have failed; and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them, if they should unfortunately have suceeded." Careful study of this passage should achieve 2 things: 1) Lay to rest for all time the claim by those afflicted with 'tall poppy syndrome' that Lord W in any way attempted to down play the importance of the Prussian contribution to victory; 2) Clarify that the Prussian Flanking attack was the battle winner no matter now successful or not the last French attack was. Whole books 'revealing' the fact that Waterloo was a German victory have been written with their authors either unaware of, or themselves downplaying, this important primary source. Please don't continue to spread their ignorance or envy.

Yorck,

The reference to 7pm merely refers to the last effort of the French on Wellington's position. The only mention he makes of Bulow at this time is that his attack had "begun to take effect".

Now you obviously interpret that phase to mean that Bulow had just commenced his attack. I would interpret this as meaning that Bulow's attack had begun earlier, but had started to make inroads into the French position by 7pm. This is hardly evidence of a falsification.

-These attacks were repeated till about seven in the evening, when the enemy made a desperate effort with cavalry and infantry, supported by the fire of artillery, to force our left centre, near the farm of La Haye Sainte, which, after a severe contest, was defeated; and, having observed that the troops retired from this attack in great confusion, and that the march of General Bülow's corps, by Frischermont, upon Planchenois and La Belle Alliance, had begun to take effect, and as I could perceive the fire of his cannon, and as Marshal Prince Blücher had joined in person with a corps of his army to the left of our line by Ohain, I determined to attack the enemy, and immediately advanced the whole line of infantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery-

Really it depends on how you want to define 'begun to take effect'. Depending on your point of view it can mean 'having an effect on the operations of the French Army' in which case it is wrong. Or, you can take it to mean 'capturing Plancenoit and breaking through into the French rear' in which case it is correct.

The problem is that the Despatch is precisely that, a despatch – a brief summary of key events, not a history book. The movements and actions of the troops, be they British, Allied or Prussian , are described in such general terms that it is a wholly pointless exercise in wordplay. La Haye Sainte is only mentioned to describe its fall – does this prove it was not attacked before then? The charge of the Union Brigade and Household Cavalry is not described until after he mentions the fall of La Haye Sainte – shall we assume that every account of the battle is wrong and LHS fell before the attacks of d'Erlon and the French heavy cavalry? The French Imperial Guard are not mentioned in the despatch's account of the final attack – does that make their attack on the Anglo-Allied line a myth?

Indeed, there are so many missing details and inaccuracies in the account of Waterloo in the despatch that one could probably use it as 'proof' that Wellington wasn't even at Waterloo, but stayed in Brussels and cribbed his account second-hand from wounded and deserters.

Damn your eyes, Captain Snort, you beat me to it..

That'll teach me to knock off for a fag break halfway through a post…

Malcolm

Actually, he brought it back. After 1809 he issued Austrian 3lb guns to battalions that later went into Russia, where they were all lost.

K

And that should be:

'..a wholly pointless exercise in wordplay to 'interpret' Wellington's entire position on any event based on a few vague words'.

Cptn Iglo wrote:
german authors do usually know what a deployment is, british usually do not, british authors writing on tactics is often a painful experience.

Cptn Iglo,

The comment refers to a particular "German" historian, and I would guess that Yorck is very familiar with him.

link

The Gneisenau Despatch…

Dear Sparker,

Why do you guys continue to mis-interpret my posts every single time ???

I was NOT accusing the British Militarty of downplaying or forgetting about the Prussian presence, I was refering to the general look at the history of the battle over the last 200 years and the fact that the "average", "civilian person" in the street does NOT know about the Prussian intervention on that battle!!

I notice it is always a Brit poster who gets upset here about this !! STOP mis-quoting me and re-read my posts for gods sake !! getting really sick of this !

Shane

Out of a dozen people asked at work (admittedly not "on the street"), not one person knew the year of the battle (and could only guess at the century) nor that it took place in Belgium. Precisely 1 person knew the battle had anything to do with Napoleon.

We're an intellectual lot…

--------------

The Gneisenau Despatch…

I notice in that Gneisenau says:

"The battle began about ten o'clock in the morning. The English army occupied the heights of Mont St. Jean; that of the French was on the heights before Plancehnoit"

So that's the Prussians downplaying the part of the Dutch/Belgian/Brunswick troops?

Bravo York well said.

Point is, neither army separately could have beaten Napoleon even with equal numbers, even they, Wellington and Blucher knew this. That is why they made the agreement to aid each other to assure a much better chance of victory. So while Wellington and Blucher were trying to get and stay together, Napoleon was trying his hardest to push them apart. In the end W & B won out with the intervention of Gneisenau when Blucher was knocked out and missing.

If it was not for the decision made by Gneisenau Waterloo would never have happened and if it did Wellington would not have survived it.

Fact is Napoleon had 72,000 men at Waterloo, Wellington had 69,000. Pretty much equal odds I would say. However, when you look at the numbers you have a marked disparity of guns in favour to the French and also a greatly superior number of Cavalry. On the other hand the French in turn were short of Infantry. So you get the famous requests and demands by Ney and others to send more Infantry forward which obviously could not be granted due to this fact.

Now take also into account the appearance of the Prussians on the Right flank with upwards of another 30,000 men the French had no recourse but to send a large chunk of their 72,000 men to the right. In the end you have Lobou's 15,000 men, 4,000 Young Guard and another 2 battalions, 1200 men of the Old Guard totalling 20,000 men drawn away from Wellington to face the Prussians. This left only 50-52,000 men to face Wellington against his 69,000 men. A disparity of approx 17-19,000 men in favour to Wellington and yet Wellington was losing the battle and slowly being crushed.

I would say Wellington was very lucky indeed to have Gneisenau make that fateful decision to fall back on Wavre and eventually to Waterloo. And with Blucher leading the vengeful Prussians into the attack Wellington would have been sighing in great relief by the end of the day indeed, which he pretty much admits in his report.

Fact is Waterloo is one of the greatest "what if" and "near run things" in human history of conflict and will remain so for hundreds if not thousands of years from now. It is enticing for people like our selves to wonder just what could have happened just slightly different that could have changed the course of history but that, of course, is what makes the campaign so interesting…

Shane

So sue him for not inserting 'sufficient'. His lawyers will laugh at you and you will smell the rosbif and claret on their breath.
Maybe he meant the attack by the Prussians meant that there was now no possibility of the retreating French being rescued. Or that the French reserves were incapable of restoring the situation. Or that the Prussian intervention was no longer being resisted strongly.
His point seems to be that he ordered an advance once it was prudent to do so, in case he is later taxed with being precipitate.

Yorck von Wartenburg,

A man promoting his ego at the expense of the Prussians

What nonsense, Wellingtons allied army ended the day victorious, try and get over it. Bye the bye as a point of interest would you by chance reside in one of our ex colonies? Kind regards, Ivan.

Cptn snort,

ok you did mean Peter Hofschroer specifically.
As far as I know not a single one of his works has been published in germany, I remember reading somewhere that he is even a british citizen or at least lives in Britain.
I would see Hofschroer as a british phenomen.
The problem is not so much the nationality of authors, but the market they are working for.
A good example is the Bondartshuk movie on waterloo, it was aimed at the movie theaters in the english speaking world.
The dutch/belgian/german components in W´s army do not appear, its all just readcoats.
The Prussians make a short appearence at the end of the movie (when the battle is already won) by Blücher giving some Nazi "no survivor" orders.
Hofschroer produces a similar easy consumable popular history diet, catchy statements and interesting theories based on sloppy research, its actually a fine marketing move to do something anti Wellington in a market where so many pro W books are out.
Still by being able to read and translate german he did indeed after nearly 200 years show new perspectives on waterloo for the english speaking reader.
But his reputation rests mainly on Wellington bashing, which is, as said, a fine marketing move.

Wellington was no doubt guilty of bias. But Id be fair in leveling that charge at everyone thats ever put their pen to paper. I doubt any General has ever said

"I was getting mauled, about an hour away from being defeated and was completely out classed. I owe it all to those other guys who turned up and won it for me"

Very few Id wager. And if they DID write that id guess that their actual mistakes were twice as bad.

Id summerize it as this, Wellingtons aim was to hold out until the Prussians could link up. HE SUCCEEDED
Bluchers aim was was to link up and support/save the allies. He SUCCEEDED.
Napoleons aim was to smash and rout the allies before the Prussians could link up with them or at the very least force them to retreat away from the Prussians. HE FAILED.
It is a British victory, Its a Prussian victory, a Dutch, Belgian and German victory.

No Ill be the first to admit that I don't know the details of the German,Dutch and Belgian accounts of the battle. If Im wrong, please correct me, Id hazard a guess that any Prussian account of the battle will say hoy ythe allies (British) were being defeated until the Prussians saved the day, Dutch accounts will focus on the trials and heroics of Dutch troops ect ect, so I dont see why British accounts should be rubbished for focusing on British events.

Regarding the movie
Funnily enough I just re wtached Waterloo, Ney actually mentions Wellingtons army as a mix of "Belgians, Germans, Brunswickers and God knows what else" but you dont actually see any of them. I doubt this was a cynical move to massage the egos of the English speaking world, and reckon that it most likely stems from the fact that 1)most of the movie public would get confused at the sight of Blue coated Belgians fighting Blue coated Frenchman, and that whole Prussian vs Nassau friendly fire thing, Red coated swiss ect ect or 2) It probably cheaper to mass produce thens of thousands of red/ blue jackets than it is to produce the same put of every trrop type on the field. I mean They dont show the 95th (though they do get a mention) but I doubt this was an attempt to write the Rifles out of the battle.

And I beleive there is additional footage, including a scene of Wellington and Blucher meeting in a village and shaking hands (ive seen photos of this in an old magazine).

Peter Hofschroer is an excellent read, though its plain to see he has a chip on his shoulder, and while his comments on Wellington/Brits I always treat carefully, he still a valuable source of information for Germanic napoleonic stuff.

I think I just broke my typo record in that one.

Ok, I might be biased and I must admit I didn´t read a single one of his books, just some excerpts on the web.

There was some time ago a debate on the Nap series forum on some of his claims considering the the so called "zieten message". H did in one of his books cite a an essay from a german historian called Pflug-Hartung to underline his claim that W did screw it in the opening stages of the campaign. A critic did give the link to the whole essay and indeed Pflug-Hartung, one of the leading german waterloo historians , did defend W against blames from others, instead Pflug-Hartung did massively critisize Gneisenau and Blücher for their rashness.
Overall H had underlined his severe claims with a german source who did just state the contrary.
How could this happen?

Just couldn´t find a link to the Pf-H article, couldn´t even find the thread in the Nap series archives with a quick search.
I´m not member of the crucify hofschroer group, so I will not invest more than a few minutes in this.

But describing hofschroer as a german historian is a bit misleading, his publications are aimed specifically at the british market.

Yorck,
you do indeed have that Hofschroer nastiness.
As said, I´m not member of the anti Hofschroer club.
sooner or later The Pf-H thing will pop up again, or not.
The whole topic is essentially something for Wellington haters/lovers.

The "critic" is Greg Pedlow, there was a long thread here either earlier on this year or last year, it had all the links and extracts, and if I could get the search engine to work I'd post the link.

@York von Wartenburg

You could for example read the publications of P. Hofschroer in historical journals and compare some of his conclusions with statements of Pflug-Hartung. Therefore, it is not necessary to read the books in order to be able to make (correct) statements.

Your last post only points to certain problems on your side :-)))

Ulenspiegel

(Disclaimer: I am not a PH hater)

link

On the First Empire website, Pedlow's article.

link

And his scan of P-H on the same website

no way, I agree with York, how can one really pass judgements on an authors books without ever reading them and be expected to be taken seriously ???

c'mon gentlemen, making statements of sloppy reasearch without ever picking one of his books up and reading it ??? omg.

yorck,
I have not much problems with nastiness, calling the whole Pedlow/Hofschroer controversy a fantasy is nasty, but lets assume you didn´t follow it.
The controversy did go on for month and seems to have left traces even here. I did follow it very closely, polemics aside both sides did even have time to exchange their arguments, pedlow did even provide a link to that pflug-hartung article, which was about 30 pages long. I did read it and did draw my conclusions.
Pflug-Hartung doesn´t support H´s standpoint, not at all, indeed the whole article was actually written in defence of Wellington against similar accusations from some earlier writers.
According to Pedlow Hofschroer states the contrary and cites PF-H in support of his view.

I must admit my bias comes a bit from following this debate.
I didn´t read his books, they´re not available here in germany, plus I´m not so much interested in german nationalism handcrafted for englishmen and Siborne models, but I know some of his arguments and his standpoint on certain things.

@Shane Devries

YvW complained that there are different versions of PH's books, which implies an unfair treatment of PH. My point is, he could in principle avoid some of the resulting problems by reading PH's original papers in peer-reviewed journals,
papers, that are a condensed versions of parts of the the books.

Ulenspiegel

Yorck, I believe your position on Lord W is untenable. Pardon me for putting words in your mouth but you seem to be saying on the basis of certain timings that either he was incompetent or lied to make himself look good. If that is an accurate summary of your position I think you are the one guilty of bias; the para I quoted previously in the thread from the Waterloo despatch written on the night after the battle clearly acknowledges that Bulow's attack was the "decisive" one. We know words can be taken out of context but any objective reading of the entire paragraph I have quoted cannot be read in any other way than to recognize the Prussian contribution as they key to victory. So, in the first and therefore most significant account of the battle to affect Royal and public opinion back in the UK, over which Lord W had total control, he acknowledges his debt to the Prussians. Hardly stacks up to moving the position of some lead soldiers on a Topographical model, does it? Your alternate position is that he was incompetent. Are you serious in this? Regards, Sparker

Yorck wrote:

"Who described Hoffie as a "German" historian? As far as I am aware, only certain of his critics have been that stupid. But then, most of them are fools, eh?"

Yorck,

Are you a "German" historian?

@YvW wrote:"I assume you mean Pflugk-Harttung. I've read Pf-H, I've read Hoffie. Hoffie comes to a number of different conclusions, so what is you point? I concede I may be being generous in assuming you have one."

The question is, whether the Pflug-Hartung text supports in some cases PH's claims. I found (as native German speaker) in some cases it does not; but as military history is only a spare time occupation for me, I can live with this.
For my taste, P. Hofschroer produced with his too far reaching conclusions and the subsequent discussion too much collateral damage and devaluated also the parts of his work that are really good. And please, save me your generosity .

Ulenspiegel

BTW: Sie können Ihren Allerwertesten darauf verwetten, dass Capt Iglo Deutsch spricht. :-)

Yorck,
As requested here are some quotes from Pf-H`s article.

The first two sentences of the article(page41) are the following:

"Bekanntlich gehen die Ansichten über den feldzug von 1815 und viele seiner einzelheiten weit auseinander. Einer der Streitfragen ist inwiefern Wellingtons verhalten zu der Niederlage bei Ligny beigetragen hat".

This means
"There are different opinions on the campaign of 1815 and many of its events. One of the disputed questions is if Wellingtons behaviour has contributed to the defeat at Ligny."

Then the Zieten message as topic of the article is adressed and from page 41 to 57 the author analyzes its delivery and reception, on page 57 he comes to the conclusion:

" Unser ergebnis bliebe demnach : Zieten hat am morgen des 15 nur eine Depesche an Wellington(Müffling) gesandt, welche zwischen 8 und 9 Uhr von Charleroi abging und zwischen 6 und 7 in Brüssel eintraf".

In English:
"The result is: Zieten did send only one message on the morning of the 15. to Wellington(Müffling) which went out from Charleroi between 8am and 9am and did reach Brussels between 6 and 7 pm."

Then finally the other messages sent until Ligny are adressed in a short summery and the whole article ends on page 61 with the following last sentence:

"Es ist daher nicht gerechtfertigt Wellington wesentliche Schuld an den Ereignissen von Ligny beizumessen."

" It is therefore not justified to give Wellington an essential responsibility for the events at Ligny "

Malcolm,

In 1798 the regimental gun companies were abolished because they were deemed too expensive. It had also been found that the practice was almost obsolete amd were deemed so in the French service.

After the organizational change in the infantry regiments in 1808 where there were now only six companies per battalion, but there were more battalions per regiment, and the companies were now larger, Napoleon reinstituted regimental gun companies for the infantry regiments in June 1809 before the second crossing of the Danube which led to Wagram.

The reason for this was that because the regiments were much larger, they would now have their own supporting organic artillery which would give them more punch and flexibility on semi-independent missions. Also, they, if well handled and commanded, could be more mobile than foot artillery companies because they had lighter pieces and had the additional benefit of stiffening green troops in combat. The bang and smoke of them firing, as well as seeing them go forward with you could raise morale.

There were also hundreds of ligth caliber guns available, both captured Austrian 3-pounders as well as the 4-pounder Gribeauval field piece, both outstanding field guns, if a little light, that could be gainfully employed for this mission.

The main problem with it was that, as usual, Napoleon wanted it done yesterday and corps and division commanders, as well as the regimental commanders, had to scrounge for the required material such as harness, vehicles, etc.

Anyways, every infantry regiment in Oudinot's II Corps, Davout's III Corps, and Massena's IV Corps were issued two guns and two caissons, and were to raise the manpower from their organic infantry regiments. The strength of these companies was to be two officers and 68 enlisted men, both for the cannoneers and drivers. The gun company would also take control of the regimental trains. They don't seem to have been ready by Wagram and were ordered to be disbanded in April 1810. The Guard, however, had them assigned to the Young Guard divisioin that went into Spain in 1810, though they were given Guard artillerymen to man the companies.

In March 1811, however, the companies were ordered to be activated again, this time with four 4-pounders each and with a strength of two officers and 95 enlisted men for gunners and drivers.

These larger companies needed both guns and caissons, but also field forges and supply wagons. Captured field pieces had to be employed, including obsolete Piedmontese pieces, and material from horse harness to riding boots and breeches had to be manufactured or procured. This process started with Davout's regiments in Germany, and continued with Eugene's in Italy, etc. It soon became apparent that there weren't enough field pieces so Napoleon ordered the old two-gun organization resumed in early 1812.

The regimental cannon companies did see service in Russia. Oudinot didn't like them, and one of his division commanders, Merle (who commanded the four Swiss regiments) thought they were useless.

Most of the regimental guns were left in Russia, though some regiments still retained their cannon companies in 1813. With all the rest of the army that had to be rearmed, the cannon companies were not resurrected for 1813.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Holy schmoly, I've come across some snarky nasty tones in Napoleonic threads in my time, but his guy Yorck takes the cake!

Please, Yorck, can you argue your point without putting everyone's backs up with such a sneering tone.

K,

Interesting comment on the 'anti-Bonapartist stance' that is perceived in Griffith's new Osprey. I haven't seen it yet, but it's inbound. I am looking forward to it.

I do think, and no doubt many will disagree, that there are more anti-Napoleon than pro-Napoleon posters on the forums.

By the way, you never answered my query on your comment about 'Napoleon's creatures.' I'd be interested in that one, if you have the time, of course. ;-)

Sincerley,
Kevin

Peter, sorry, York… I echo Arteis' post.
BTW are you allowed to post here I thought you were banned?
donald
(it's so hard to change your writing style: it's easier to pick than fingerprints)

if York is in fact PH then I am guilty of agreeing with him.

Sadly I agreed with some of his statements, but knowing who it is I will never agree with the person and his agenda.

Shane

Nothing terribly wrong with PH's books.
I believe there are one or two issues with them but I could say that about several histories.
BTW it's odd how these guys keep coming back?
donald

So is "Yorck" actually PH?

While I don't have a dog in this race, not really having any pre-conceived standpoint (or knowledge) as to whether it was the British, Dutch-Belgians, Germans or Prussians who won Waterloo, I've enjoyed following the discussion. Until, that is, even though I'm just a discussion-follower rather than an adherent, my back was put up so much by the sarcastic way Yorck tried to put his points across and others' points down.

Some people believe a historian's job is to find out what really happened. However, that is only half of their job. Their task then is to convince others of their conclusions, and that requires skill and diplomacy – facets that are totally lacking in Yorck's postings.

All Yorck has succeeded in doing is putting a mental barrier up in front of his theory.

lol, then that just shows everyone the type of person you really are…

'Could you post a brief review in another thread?'

Sure. Stand by.

I think the first letter in the last word of your post is incorrect, Peter.
donald

"By the way, you never answered my query on your comment about 'Napoleon's creatures.' I'd be interested in that one, if you have the time, of course. ;-)"

basically, how many of the 'operational' Marshals would have risen to that position on their own? Davout? Jourdan? Any other offers? Certainly not Marmont, Oudinot, Ney, Bessieres, Victor and most of the others, plus some of the other non-Marshals given Corps command like Junot or Bertrand..

That is before we get into the nepotism arguments surrounding Murat, Eugene, Jerome, Joseph and (briefly) Louis. Also pro-republican competents like Foy, for example, were probably not promoted to the level their abilities demanded for political reasons.

Hence my reference to creatures…

K

Peter, I cannot believe you are an author of supposedly intellectual books on history ??? your attitude and probably your personality shown here is one which I would never associate with anyone who would be a serious writer ??? did you have some kind of persecution problems at one time in your life and feel the need to lash out every now and again hmmm ? just curious…

Devries
'' You obviously do not know a great deal about the Prussian army do you ?''
Personal dig – one-sided.

Devries
''cacadore, I ask you please can we keep this debate on a professional level and not let it degenerate to a personal attack mind set on both sides.''
Personal dig – one-sided again.

You've done this before, Devries – personal attack followed by appeal (to me) to stop (presumably your) personal attacks (!).

Allow me to indulge in a spot of imaginative prediction:
_______________________________________________________
The next stage (if previous patterns follow themselves) will be
1) A new topic about how we should be more friendly to each other, followed by
2) Multiple spurious complaints to Bill, followed by
3) more personal insults, followed by
4) An apology along the lines of: 'I have acted badly but I was goaded into it…..'' etc
5) An acceptance of this 'apology' by K.
6) more spurious complaints to Bill…etc etc
7) Following me around the topics with insults…..

Until another person who had the courage to disagree with the Bonapartist Myth-cabal here is banned from the site.

Thought I'd just point out where we're going with this for the uninitiated -perhaps we can just fast track to the end and save us all a load of trouble :-)

(Following previous patterns, the response to this post will be an attempt at disconcerted humourous denial:-)

Hope you enjoyed this predictive interlude:-)

Regards
_________________________________________________
Khevenhuller 19 Nov 2007 2:49 a.m. PST
''Cacadore Can I ask, as you seem to think that Gniesenau dragged his feet, a discussion of actual motives for this? Nowhere in your agrument can I find an adequate explanation of why he would choose such a course of action….''

By all means, and so elegantly put. That Gn dragged his feet is standard history. It is this aspect of our debates on TMP that must surprise the uninitiated. Gn disagreed with Blucher on working too closely with Wellington and he is known to have made (mildly – it has to be said) anti-English comments. He seems to have been suspicious of British motives.

His actual motive on the day, would have been any commander's, or CofS's motive: to preserve his army, to preserve his communications.

Regards

If a certain Wellington's Smallest Victory person is on this thread, he'd be best going down the pub now:-)

I'm quite happy to post a link to a fully researched list of errors and invented facts which he has already seen (a list he has so far failed to answer) but it would somewhat clutter the thread!

Thanks Cacadore,Lord I haven,t laughed so much since the old King died! Ivan.

Stop it now please YvW, a chap only has so many ribs!! Ivan

"By all means, and so elegantly put. That Gn dragged his feet is standard history. It is this aspect of our debates on TMP that must surprise the uninitiated. Gn disagreed with Blucher on working too closely with Wellington and he is known to have made (mildly – it has to be said) anti-English comments. He seems to have been suspicious of British motives.

His actual motive on the day, would have been any commander's, or CofS's motive: to preserve his army, to preserve his communications.

Regards"

But do we have any actual evidence? I am sorry to expect some form of professional rigour here (blame my job) but without proof it is really just a theory. The existing evidence seems open to a variety of interpretations and, as this debate illustrates, is not conclusive.

I am also disappointed that, once again, the atmosphere has become poisonous, producing far more heat than light.

K

K,

The marshalate was revived under Napoleon, that is, it was his creation. So, to answer your first question, none of them would have as there would have probably been no marshalate without Brumaire.

Sincerely,
Kevin

K,

Lannes and Bessieres were promoted to general officer rank by Napoleon and their records bear out that they deserved the promotion. Murat proved himself a competent cavalry commander in 1805-1807, but he wasn't the best of the cavalry generals. Bessieres commanded the Cavalry Reserve much better in 1809.

Eugene is probably the most underrated commander of the period. His performance in 1809 became outstanding, and his performance in 1812-1814 was outstanding.

Jourdan and Foy I believe you have overrated, especially Jourdan. I don't care for either Joseph or Jerome, but Joseph had to be carefully handled as he was capable of intrigue against the Empire and was probably a coward to boot. Jerome at least showed courage on the battlefield. Napoleon, unfortunately for him, was devoted to his family to his own hurt.

Ney and Oudinot were both competent infantry commanders and were past their level of competence at either the corps or army level. Marmont was an outstanding soldier and an expert artilleryman, who listened to his own vanity too much.

The term 'creatures' hints at something a little more than incompetent and the term isn't warranted. Compared with the generals they fought against, the French general officers were generally head and shoulders above them. There were exceptions. Wellington was a great captain in his own right and the Archduke Charles was also an outstanding soldier.

However, Napoleon was lucky to have the generals that he did serve him, and the term 'creatures' just doesn't fit as an all-encompassing pejorative. Taken as a group they were probably the most talented group of general officers ever to serve one man-and they were at war for 23 years. Some of them just wore out, such as Massena, and some went over the edge, as Junot did, from a variety of factors. One of them being, in Junot's case, a few head wounds that had to effect his final fate.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Cacadores,

Just whom is in the 'Napoleonic Myth Cabal?' I would submit that you cause a lot of the trouble here, not Shane. And your statements such as 'that [Gneisenau] dragged his feet is standard history' are not backed up by any documentation. Who's 'standard history?' Yours? Seems to me that you are accusing others of things that you yourself attempt.

Sincerely,
Kevin

Cacadores -That Gn dragged his feet is standard history.-

Could you be more specific? The only halfway-recent publication I've seen that advances this theory as fact is 'Sharpes Waterloo'.

Cacadores -His actual motive on the day, would have been any commander's, or CofS's motive: to preserve his army, to preserve his communications-

This is where I've never quite grasped the advantages of the supposed Gneisenau Plan.

Communications: By retreating to Wavre instead of Namur the Prussians had already given up their main LOC. The best left alternative available to them was probably via the Wavre-Brussels road. But if Wellington is beaten then Brussels falls and that gets cut.

Saving the Army: By advancing to Waterloo the Prussian Army is effectively marching into a tunnel – the exits are at Waterloo and Wavre and there do not appear to be any viable escape routes that an army – complete with trains, artillery and cavalry – can use to slip away northward. To accept the Gneisenau Plan is to accept that Gneisenau's idea of saving the Prussian Army was to have the strung-out corps of Bulow emerging to face a superior force at one end of the tunnel, Thielemann facing a superior French force at the other end and Ziethen & Pirch hopelessly strung-out between the two in a pair of miles-long two-man wide columns.

If Gneisenau's plan succeeds..where does he go from there? There is no chance of breaking out past Napoleon. The only realistic chance of saving the army is to head back and concentrate at Wavre, push Grouchy and his 30 000 men out of the way and somehow reach Namur all while holding off the main French Army.

Putting myself in Gneisenau's boots, to make my plan work I obviously want to keep as many troops as possible in the vicinity of Wavre.

Given that, the worst thing I can do is send Bulow off first, for two reasons. First, it is my strongest, freshest Corps and I'm going to need it at Wavre. Second, being furthest from Waterloo also makes Bulow closest to the French. Even starting off first, Bulow only just dodged the French pursuit. If I delay his march, he gets caught and pinned by Grouchy at Wavre, which gives me two corps at Wavre and virtually halves the number of troops I'm sending down the tunnel.

What I really need to do is send the battered corps first. Not only can that be convincingly defended on the grounds of their being closer, their relatively disorganised state will inevitably impose a severe delay on the march and prevent to great a commitment at the 'wrong' end of the tunnel.

Quite simply, if I put myself in Gneisenau's place and attempt to find ways to make his alleged scheme work, I end up doing the opposite of what he actually did. As far as I can see, his plan to save the Prussian Army involved doing everything that would tend to leave it in the worst possible position. This does not seem to make sense.