"Waterloo Hypothetical" Topic

Suppose that after Quatre Bras and Ligny, instead of following his usual Central Position strategy, Napoleon had analyzed the psychology of his opponents. Wellington notoriously withdraws and defends. Blucher notoriously attacks and attacks again. The two are so ripe for manipulation to play upon the differences.
I hypothesize a scenario where instead of attacking Wellington and pursuing Blucher, Napoleon finds good ground before Waterloo and adopts a defensive position with an apparent flaw on the right flank. He then waits and withing a day or two, Blucher will persuade Wellington to attack without resolve. Wellington will be against the French left and Blucher against the French right. Napoleon baits Blucher into attacking his right and holding his left and then splits the armies and sends Wellington retreating and finishes off Blucher.
Effectively, he pulls an Austerlitz.
If this is semi-reasonable, one needs to find good ground before Waterloo that Napoleon could occupy, make up orders of battle for all three full armies (no Hal contingent etc) and fight it out as an alternate.
What are the flaws or considerations that I am missing?

Napoleon could have won at Waterloo. He could have won any number of tactical victories afterwards, but he was finished strategically. He had made too many enemies over the years. No one would negotiate with him; they all wanted him gone.

Interesting idea but I think the disparity in numbers would be telling. So, no second Austerlitz.

He would be out numbered. I think the best strategy was what he did, split the two armies and defeat each one. But he needed to effectively destroy them or beat them so badly they retreated and were no longer a threat. He defeated the Prussians but he did not beat them enough.

I agree he still could have won, but he left his best commanders in Paris and on the frontier. That was on him.

Napoleon did not have the well honed army he had years before, and he himself was very unwell. Also, lets not forget that by 1815, Europe knew Napoleonic strategy and tactics, so the major advantages Napoleon had in 1805-7 no longer applied.

How does he 'Hold' Wellington while destroying Blucher? And who does the holding? Ney? Soult? Wellington had a pretty good record as an attacking General which can be seen in the list of battles in the Peninsula.

Game it and see!

The Armee du Nord was one of the best that Napoleon ever led. It was mostly a veteran army that wanted revenge for 1814 and definitely welcomed Napoleon back from Elba. The most significant weakness was that Napoleon did not have Berthier as his chief of staff. Soult probably made more errors in four days than Berthier made in twenty years, and Napoleon later remarked that if Berthier had been with Nord he would not have lost.

Napoleon chose to attack Wellington and Blucher because they were the most determined of his enemies and their loss to the allies might very well have been catastrophic. Blucher being destroyed at Ligny, which he very nearly was, and Wellington withdrawing to the Channel and then England could have crippled the Coalition.

And what is usually overlooked is that Napoleon was planning on a long war which is one of the reasons that he made Davout his Minister of War (it was Davout who created the Armee du Nord and got it ready to take the field).

And there was a good chance that neither the Russians nor the Austrians would have wanted to face a victorious Napoleon after the defeat of the Anglo-Allied army and the Prussians. There were still pro-French elements in Prussia and Russia who might have rallied to Napoleon again.

And it should also be remembered that it was the allies, not Napoleon, who chose war in 1815. And regardless of Napoleon's physical condition, he was still capable of immense physical and intellectual activity.

Napoleon can't have been that unhealthy if he was able to ride 30 miles non stop from Waterloo on the night of the 18/19 June.

Uhlans on your tail will do that

Uhlans on your tail? You can get ointment for that these days…

If the Armee du Nord was one of the best French armies of the Napoleonic wars, it says a lot for the Allies that they defeated it.

He lost – just live with it.

He lost – just live with it.

Best thing I've read all day.

If the Armee du Nord was one of the best French armies of the Napoleonic wars, it says a lot for the Allies that they defeated it.

Nord defeated Blucher at Ligny when outnumbered and inflicted at least twice the casualties it incurred.

Part of Nord fought Wellington to a draw at Quarte Bras.

At Waterloo the French were fighting again outnumbered, and those enemy numbers increased as the day moved on.

So, yes, I'd say that Nord was one of the best armies Napoleon ever commanded and led.

Best losers.

I would argue that the corps commanders weren't what they had been in the past

My heart bleeds for you, Brechtel, it really does – it must be dreadful to have to live with this burning desire for historical reality to have been other than the way it was. But, you know, this obsessive compulsion to turn every thread vaguely connected with Napoleon into an attempt to re-write history so your favourite characters win, and your betes noirs, the British, lose, is also rather tedious for the rest of us. Do you think maybe you could give it a rest for a bit?

And it's not doing your reputation as a historian much good, either, you know.

I am a simple chap but the counterfactual, suggested above, is just what Napoleon was desperate to avoid and did happen in the end anyway (granted at a stage in the day when his army was fairly shattered already). Facing the Allied and Prussian armies, combined, was just what his strategy sought to evade…..on any battle ground.

Armee du Nord does seem to have had a good nucleus of veterans, but I do wonder about morale. The Premier Restauration must have done as much to dispirit them all, as any defeats in battle. Furthermore, mistrust of their commanders' loyalties quickly proved well founded. A "fragile" army is often suggested……..

Getting back to the OP's hypothetical request.

No I dont think it would have happened like that.
If Napoleon had gone on the defensive and waited for Blucher to attack.
I think that Wellington would have told Blucher to wait. Both armies could have brought up all of their reserves and garrisons as they now knew where Napoleon's army was.
After a few weeks, they could have launched a combined attack with overwhelming force.
Or they could have waited also on the defensive, for the Austrians and Russians to cross the Rhine.

Now that's a good 'what if' LEIPZIG 1815 !

Wellington and Blucher were planning to invade in the first week of July anyway. All they were really waiting for was for dispersed corps to close up and the last few units to arrive.

Napoleon's strategy was to force a battle that neither was yet ready to fight. The potential win was to discredit Wellington, send the Prussians back to the Elbe and detach the Netherlands from the coalition against him.

Napoleon and Wellington both clearly saw that the decisive presence in the campaign was Wellington's. The Prussians could not in any possible circumstances win a battle against Napoleon, and hence they desperately needed Wellington's army in 1815 like they needed the Russians and Austrians in 1813-1814. Only with both superior numbers and an effective ally on the field could the Prussians ever win (and even then, it wasn't a done deal). Without Wellington, the Prussians faced guaranteed oblivion on both the 16th and 18th June.

There are and were nutters in denial of this – including the most treacherous nutter of all, Gneisenau – but them's the facts. The Prussians lost every battle they fought alone between 16th and 18th June, even if they had superior numbers and had chosen the ground. Wellington won every battle he ever fought, and the only 100 Days victory at which Prussian troops were present was Wellington's. Plancenoit was a draw until Wellington broke the French line. Prussian artillery fired from Plancenoit was still landing on the Brussels road when Wellington's advance reached that far south, half an hour or so after the repulse of the Old Guard, so the idea that the French collapsed first (or even simultaneously) in Plancenoit is nonsense. The French held it until their retreat was threatened by Wellington.

At Waterloo it took 10,000 French soldiers to contain three to five times as many Prussians. So on that basis, Napoleon would have needed only Grouchy to hold off the entire Prussian force, while he tried conclusions against Wellington with his entire Waterloo force, i.e. he needn't have earmarked 10,000 of his 75,000 to hold his right.

This would actually have given him worse odds than at Waterloo. Once Wellington had complete information as to where Grouchy was, then rather than leaving 17,000 men at Hal in case Grouchy turned up there, he could have concentrated all 90,000 of his men against Napoleon. If Wellington could beat 65,000 French with 72,000 men in the real time line, he'd have had little trouble beating 75,000 with 90,000.

What Napoleon did was exactly correct, IMHO. He had some chance of winning if he attacked as he did, but none at all if he hung back and waited to be attacked. Some is better than none.

Best thing I've read all day.

Most pointless, I'd say. What does it contribute to the discussion of the topic?

But, you know, this obsessive compulsion to turn every thread vaguely connected with Napoleon into an attempt to re-write history so your favourite characters win, and your betes noirs, the British, lose, is also rather tedious for the rest of us.

Brechtel's derailing of threads..do they look anything like this part of your post? Oh, the irony…

Meanwhile, back on topic, I would agree that what happened on the battlefield probably wouldn't have mattered that much in the long run, but in any case he was outnumbered nearly 2:1, and while the Armee du Nord certainly wasn't a collection of conscripts, I doubt that it would have matched the Grande Armee of 1805 for quality either, and probably even the army of 1805 Austerlitz wouldn't have been enough.

I think Napoleon's original plan, minus the snafus, probably would have done the job. Maybe the Austrians and Russians would have been discouraged, but I guess the British could have thrown enough money at them to overcome their qualms…

Fat, that wasn't very nice of you.

Brechtel posted a relevant reply on this thread.

Please keep it civil