"Could Napoleon have won 1813 after the armistice?" Topic

Started reading Digby Smiths Leipzig again.

And it strikes me, that after the armistice, Napoleon was boned. Except for Dresden. He looses, divisions and corps by the bucket load. If not trapped at Leipzig, he would have been trapped some place els. Or simply died by one and one corps getting wiped out.

But why? can it be boiled down to the fact that battles the french should have won were lost because of the bad troops the french had. Or a total collapse on all leves from privates, to marshals to napoleon him self?

Well Austria finally joining the allies and adding their large army has something to do with it.

Napoleon had the odds against him but it could have gone differently if he had focused more on the Austrians initially rather than the Prussians – after the summer armistice he kept Reynier's Corps (VII) with Oudinot moving against Berlin and consequently when Vaddamme's I Corps tried to cut off the Army of Bohemia after Dresden he wound up being surrounded at Kulm and half of I Corps plus Vandamme were captured. If he had had Reynier's Corps he might have been able to pin down the Army of Bohemia

What I remember from my readings (some time ago) is that after agreeing to the armistice, and given what occurred (and could have been predicted to occur) Nappy was in fact doomed to the same thing that happened again in 1814, a slow strangling of a thousand cuts inevitably resulting in either a catastrophic big defeat (1813, 1815) or running out of space to maneuver and and resources with which to fight (1814).

Yes.

After reading Scottīs Bowden book on the campaign, I must confess my opinion about Napoleonīs abilities has dropped even more. The 1813īs Army was a complete disaster from the logistical perspective. Why did Napoleon call so many men to the ranks, when it was impossible to feed them, and even less to train them? The army simply dissolved like a sugar cube on water once it began to march away from the camps. The attrition loses were staggering in the first weeks, as if it was a just a mob instead of a real army. It was by far too big an Army for the cadres and logistical capabilities available to Napoleon. If it had been 30% smaller and not divided in 3 armies for no reason, it would have had a much better record.
The first defeats were caused in great part due to the absurd dispersion of the Army on three fronts for dubious political reasons: I think that dispersion made impossible for the french Light cavalry to fulfill its critical mission of recon and screening duties. The wider the front, the greater the advantage for the numerically superior Allied light cavalry.

I don't think he could have defeated the allies after the armistice but he still had a large army in being and could have negotiated a decent treaty which would have left France with its 1792 borders.

He won the battle of Dresden then lost the pursuit, proving once again he didn't have enough marshals he could trust out of his sight. He should have had Ney in charge of the guard and Davout, St Cyr and Bessieres as his army commanders.

No – after the armistic his strategical concept collapsed – the Austrians could well threaten his lines of communication and almost all he could do was marching under miserable weather conditions between Dresden and Leipzig, by that ruining his conscripts.
And the weak points in NtG operational art of war was evident, he couldn't take on three different armies.
His only hope was to use the armisitic to negotiate peace – but that was beyond his ego.
As soon as Austria joined the Allies – miracles would be necessary to win against them.
He had a good chance in the spring campaign – in my opinion.

And the Allies decision to withdraw in front of any army led by Napoleon also caused unnecessary marching and countermarching of his green troops. His cavalry had also taken tremendous losses in the retreat out of Russia and wasn't up to the immense task levied upon them.

Jim

Napoleon needed a body double or two to defeat the Fabian strategy – the marble is under which shell?

He should have made peace during the armistice but I guess he wasn't ready to throw in the towel to a group of adversaries he had roundly thrashed for years.

Of course, hindsight IS 20-20.