"The most important reason for Napoleon's downfall was...?" Topic

Spain? Russia? Continental System? British intransigence? Dererioration of the French army and/or N's generalship? Allied reforms? Napoleon's fundamental defects as a statesman?

What do you think?

No one single thing.

No ice cream
(See Bill and Ted's Excellant Adventure)

He lost?

Napoleon

Napoleon's three greatest errors were Spain, Russia, and the Continental System. Without those gross errors, Napoleon may not have lost the series of wars he was engaged in.

Sincerely,
K

Napoleon's reach was longer than his grasp.

God bless,
John

head says Russia
silly english heart says coz he wanted to clobber us aswell.

Napoleon

Fanboyz.

Ego

Failure to find able and trustworthy subordinates. Really.

You can't run an empire while having to lead every campaign yourself AND run back to the capital to keep shoring up your position.

It was all too much too soon. He needed to be the guy who set up the game for his successor to shine…but he was not that kind of guy.

Money. Or rather, the lack of it.

Napoleon set himself up for a vicious cycle that could only end in economic collapse eventually. It was just a matter of when.

In order to wage war, he needs armies on a scale hitherto-undreamed-of, which are massively expensive. France itself is tapped-out; taxes are as high as they've ever been and can't go any higher. By 1807 the continental bond markets are similarly exhausted. France can't secure loans below 8.5% anymore, which in those days was considered borderline Junk status. (Britain borrowed at rates between 3.5% and 5.5%).

So there is only one remaining way to get the funds: exploitation of conquered territories. Across Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, and elsewhere, French authorities and their satellite regimes were forced to contribute huge sums to pay for the maintenance of French forces. (In Westphalia, for example, the French "contributions" were equal to 50% of the national budget! Plus additional funds for the maintenance of the large French garrison in Magdeburg.) There were huge transfers of land and wealth, which inevitably led to cronyism and corrupt patronage. Pauline Bonaparte, for example, was the recipient of hundreds of thousands of acres of confiscated estates that she never visited, and in some cases never even asked for, as Napoleon stashed away much of the wealth among family members.

Obviously, this is not only a short-term expedient at best, since the confiscated wealth won't last forever, but also becomes a cause for resentment, even hatred, of the French overlordship. People blamed Napoleon for the economic collapse, rather than blaming the British blockade, because it was Napoleon's guys on he scene, arresting people for black-marketeering, or taking people's land, livestock, cash, etc. By 1810 the Continental economy was in free-fall. I've looked at statistics for places like Holland, the German states, and northern Italy, and you see the same pattern everywhere: businesses shutting down, unemployment spiking, a huge increase in crime and migrating homeless people.

In coastal areas (Holland, the German ports, Croatia), Napoleon attempted to clamp down on it by just annexing those lands to France and hoping to improve the degree to which they could be policed. Needless to say, that did nothing to improve revenues from those areas, since now France is responsible for paying for their bureaucracy as well. (And it certainly didn't improve morale! In 1812 when war with Russia broke out, many northern Germans would greet French soldiers and officials with "Vive l'Empereur… [and then sotto voce] …Alexander!") I've read many of the French police reports from this period and they all indicate the same problems: dangerously rising tensions between the occupied and the occupiers, often turning violent, which brings reprisals that make people even angrier.)

By 1813 the imperial finances resemble a giant ponzi scheme, with debt being moved around off-budget in various creative ways. There were "forced bond" issues, in which people were required to "buy" government debt at horizons of 15+ years. By that point, there was significant resistance against Bonaparte authority in northern Italy, Holland, and Germany. (One anti-draft riot in Holland involved upwards of 13,000 people.) In Westphalia the last bond drive brought in less than half of what it was forecast, despite it supposedly being mandatory.

The bottom-line is a cruel irony: as long as he is at war with Britain, Napoleon can't possibly raise the revenues needed to fight a war against people who are funded by Britain. Each time he tangles with the Coalition, he finds himself ruling over yet more territories that have to be garrisoned, at ever-greater expense, and leading to ever-greater conflicts. (Can you imagine a Russian war in 1812, had there not been a war in 1806-07? What were French troops doing in Poland, anyway? How did the frontier of French power end up there in the first place, except by trying to control the ever-growing list of enemies?)

Make peace with Britain, and the blockade ends, commerce and shipping return, employment picks back up, and the bond markets revive.

Or take the gamble that somehow, somewhere, you can win enough victories on the Continent to convince the British to make peace with you?

And when you do have a British Army on the continent in reach, finish it off yourself, don't send subordinates.

But if you make peace with Britain you cannot compete with them!

And that was something that N could not admit. He *had* to be the biggest, baddest man on the block. Not "first among equals", *first* in everything.

My extremely over-simplified digest of Sam's writing: the nation of shopkeepers could borrow money at much lower rates than the nation of soldier-adventurer-looters.

Money. It always comes back to money.

How Napoleon spent his money when he had it is also important. Had he put as much into the Navy at the right time – particularly into its organisation and training (both crews and officers), then he had a much better chance of forcing Britain to a peace acceptable to him.

It would not have been easy to do and did not look an attractive (or even achievable) prospect at the time BUT, in hindsight, it would have been more effective than the cash spent invading Spain.

Even the Spanish invasion, though, is about money.

Why does he invade Spain? Because he feels he can't trust them anymore; there are hints that they're negotiating with the British, trying to get out of the war.

And why is Spain trying to get out of the war? Because the British blockade is crushing their economy, cutting them off from their colonies, which are the source of 75% of Spanish government revenue. Spain is desperate to escape the Napoleonic alliance, which has bankrupted their finances and ruined their fleet.

Napoleon's response: conquer Spain and add yet one more war and massive occupation expense to his ledger. Even if Wellington had never set foot in Spain with a British army, the French occupation would have been a massive drain on Napoleon's budget. He would have added a bankrupt satellite, with an angry, rebellious population that needed huge garrisons for which the locals couldn't pay… and no access to the wealth of the Spanish overseas empire.

And yet, what can he do? Sooner or later Spain is going to bolt, so then what?

Like I said, he's set himself up for a vicious cycle. There's only one way out: Peace with Britain. Whatever the price that costs… it's ultimately less than the price of wrecking Europe, bankrupting France, and losing his entire dynasty.

Paddy Griffith posited the French dilemma as always needing to invade a new place to plunder. That was sort of a military Ponzi scheme that worked as long as the French Army won big.

One must recall that the Revolution was caused by the bankruptcy of the French government. Louis XVI was forced to call the Estates General because he was out of cash and no one would lend any more. The revolutionaries were committed to paying off the debt, in part because many of them were owed money.

I had a history teacher back in the day who said the first thing to ask was who stood to profit. Bless her.

This is strangely civilized so far. Is that because the most contentious folks are in the dawghouse?

One man against all the Kings of Europe. He had to fail.

It is never so much why he failed, but My God, look at how far he got.

Likewise, the amazing thing about the march on Moscow and the retreat is not how many died so much that so many survived it and continued to fight on. There were an surprising number of veterans of Moscow.

What would the British price of peace have been?

Regards

Inability to delegate, or at least delegate to the right people!

Someone else won…..

And people laughed*, THEY LAUGHED!!!! at me when I proposed a "points system" for games that was based on how much something cost, rather than its "battlefield effectiveness".
It worked in needlessly complicated (unless you like that sort of thing) boardgames, but was somehow taboo for tabletop games.

I imagine that a similar SPI boardgame from the 80s that had Napoleon's primary path to victory as making peace with the British would not sell very well. Not sexy enough!
BTW, I would not bet any money that there was NOT such a game. That winning strategy would be seen as poor form, though.

+++++++++++++
*Not only did they laugh, they accused me of trying to sabotage wargaming.

And people laughed*, THEY LAUGHED!!!! at me when I proposed a "points system" for games that was based on how much something cost, rather than its "battlefield effectiveness".

Which thread was that in John?

Land war in asia?

As one of my favorite history professors used to say, "monocausality is SO 20th century…" ;)

And people laughed*, THEY LAUGHED!!!! at me when I proposed a "points system" for games that was based on how much something cost, rather than its "battlefield effectiveness".

But then I couldn't use my King Tigers and Cuirassiers!?!?

Of course they laughed John, a point system based on that would mean they would learn something, and as you like to trumpet, its only a game, you can't learn anything applicable in the real world from it.

If ytou play double or nothing till you lose, you will lose.

syphilis

Col Sharpe? Sean Bean always gets my vote.

I have a question- So essentially Napoleon was little better than some sort of 19th century "Bernie Madoff" who had to keep conquering,or the jig would be up(complete economic collapse)? Any ideas what he was worth,financially?

"Any ideas what he was worth?"

That depends on what scale you want, and whether you want the staff figures, horses, marshals, and Roustam. (Ever notice how there's always a Roustam figure in every set?)

I paid about twenty bucks, but then that was Foundry.

But seriously?

He had quite a bit of wealth stashed away in various places, although mostly dispersed amongst his family and extended family. On paper at least, the Bonapartes were quite rich by about 1808 or so. Pauline and Joseph each had land whose annual revenues were well over half a million francs. (A modern-day equivalent would be an income of about $40 USD million, on estates valued about ten times that much.)

I'm not sure what that net worth was, though, when set against their debts, which were often considerable.

Napoleon's response: conquer Spain and add yet one more war and massive occupation expense to his ledger. Even if Wellington had never set foot in Spain with a British army, the French occupation would have been a massive drain on Napoleon's budget. He would have added a bankrupt satellite, with an angry, rebellious population that needed huge garrisons for which the locals couldn't pay… and no access to the wealth of the Spanish overseas empire.

Apparently, Napoleon wanted to improve the money that he got from Spain. A Spain that, as you already pointed, was exhausted after 4 years of war against Britain. When people asked me why the Spanish resistance was important to the final defeat of Napoleon, I answer that Napoleon got to extract 70 millions francs from Spain since 1808 until 1814, while the expenditures of his Spanish adventure were of 73 millions francs per year. Actually, between May 1808 and June 1810, Napoleon had sent 200 millions of livres tournoises to pay the sustenance and arrears of his army in Spain.

Best

He simply ran out of Frenchmen to command.

Rumor has it that Roustam spied for the British-that's why he's always depicted with a turban,to hide the camera.

The Royal Navy.

Second would be the Russian Army.

The desire for money and resources starts it, the lack of them finishes it. Every war, every time!

this should fill the cells for weeks to come..

For nearly 300 years the number one preoccupation of Europe was to maintain a kind of status quo, nobody could be too successful and achieve hegemony in Europe, so from Louis XIV until Hitler there were always enough nations ready to take up arms and form a coalition to take on the overly ambitious.

Despite a string of successes, Napoleon never managed to make his gains permanent, as either he or somebody else was willing to wage yet another war. In the end France became overstretched, facing opponents that would not accept anything short of a return to pre-revolution Europe.

Under Napoleon a long term peace had little chance, he was always ready to renege on a deal and go to war to teach all those "little nations" of Europe a lesson.

What about this.

Napoleon's *fundamental defects as a statesman* underlay all the other causes of his defeat.

Had he been willing to accept a Europe without France being the unquestioned dominant power, and in which he did not seek to continue to try to impose humiliating and draconian military 'solutions' to any resistance to this vision, his neighbours would have been willing to live with him – even the British.

The inability of Napoleon to accept anything less than French hegemony ensured that they would keep coming at him, getting better and better at his game all the while – leading him into ever more risky military gambles – Spain, Russia, War of Liberation, 100 Days.

Or was his position such that any kind of compromise with the Great Powers would have resulted in him being removed from power in France, as in the near success of General Malet's conspiracy in 1812?

It is bizarre how people want to wrap up the Napoleonic legend into a simple case of his personality defects (arrogance and ambition) causing his undoing, as though millions of enemies took no part in that, as though a poor Corsican Gentleman had everything handed to him and could have ruled the world if only he wasn't ambitious and proud.

This is not the story of the Titanic vs. the iceberg. It is the narrative of the trajectory of brilliant nobody to glorious heights and then his fall to earth and ashes. Gravity brought him down, but oh, to what heights he first climbed.

The main reason for Napoleon's downfall? He flew too close to the sun on wax-glued wings.

Ah, the lovable ghost of Victor Hugo:

"Napoleon was impeached in heaven and his fall decreed. He had become troublesome to God…."

Hey, I love a good über-Romantic melodrama as much as the next guy, but… once you look under the hood of history, you realize that much more mundane things make the engine run: resources, manpower, and did I mention money?

Money is not a malady, but only a symptom.

"It is the narrative of the trajectory of brilliant nobody to glorious heights and then his fall to earth and ashes. Gravity brought him down, but oh, to what heights he first climbed."

Wow. You sound like one of the Ogre's fans. I am sure certain people would claim to believe the same about a certain Austrian corporal.

The fact remains that had he acted differently he could well have retained his power within France, if not his (curious) romantic appeal as the guy who staked everything to take on all comers…and lost.

In particular, coming to terms with Britain should have been eminently possible, had N been willing to scale back his vision of hegemony in Europe. Unfortunately for him, he could not consent to being mere 'first among equals' on the continent.

And there it is again: Napoleon could have kept his prize if only he had been humble and accepted Great Britain's demand that they dominate Europe. Uppitiness was his downfall.

The British narrative is not that he was thrown down by The Gods, but he had the hubris to oppose Britain, and for that he is eternally condemned