"What was the best invention or innovation under Napoleon" Topic

Napoleon was average height. I believe Alexander the Great was short and so was Frederick the Great. So height has nothing to do with skill and achievements. Just look at the size of the some of the best footballers in the world. And he might have had a short reign but he certainly has his place in history alongside Alexander the Great, forever. Not a bad achievement for a so called 'short' guy. LOL

dibble

I was joking, silly. Everyone knows the Brits were war mongering long before Napoleon came along. Thanks for the reminder! LOL

Another thing we can attribute to the Corsican arriviste is that he made it cool to be short.

Meneval, who knew Napoleon well, stated that 'Napoleon was of medium height (5'2")' and that measurement was in French feet. The French foot was 3/4 of an inch longer than the English foot, making Napoleon a little over 5'6" which was average height for the period.

The idea that Napoleon was 'short' came from the fact that some writers equated French and English feet, which is incorrect.

The correct height has been in print in English for some time, so it's not a 'secret.' Meneval's memoirs were published in English in 1910.

As for the comment of Napoleon being an 'arriviste' it is somewhat confusing.

Definition of arriviste: one that is a new and uncertain arrival (as in social position or artistic endeavor).

Napoleon was certainly not 'new' as a soldier and commander of note, nor was he uncertain. As First Consul he almost immediately demonstrated he was not 'uncertain.' He was most definitely in charge as he firmly took control and with his social and political reforms he remade France for the better.

I am looking forward to the next 'colorful' comment…🤦‍♂️

he neither invented the corps system, nor the first modern staff, what he did is to tailor those established systems according to his needs to great benefit for him.
Berthier was not a modern chief of staff, like compared to Gneisenau and had no influence (to bad effect for Boney) in planning campaigns or the operational art of war.

Berthier clearly developed the French staff system as was employed from 1796-1814. Interestingly, he also was the French Minister of War from 1800-1807.

Berthier was the first of the great chiefs of staff of history, and Gneisenau neither developed a staff system nor was he as skilled (or respected by the Prussian corps commanders). Compared to the French general staff the Prussian staff was in its embryonic stage in 1815.

Berthier most certainly had great influence in planning and the operational art and displayed that talent in the Marengo campaign as he formed the Armee de la Reserve for the campaign and it was he who moved it across the Alps into northern Italy.

Ferdinand von Funck, who knew Berthier and saw him on campaign, remarked:

'All the problems connected with the needs of the army and their transport…were thrown on him…The armies were scattered from Bayonne to the Bug, from Calabria to the Helder, and as far as Stralsund; they were shifting their positions incessantly, had to be supplied and directed, and the whole of it passed through [Berthier's] hands…He always was the clearing house through which all business was transacted…the infallible day book to which Napoleon was referring every minute of the day to make sure how his balance stood. For this reason he had to be in attendance on him on every battlefield, on reconnaissance, at every review…without fail on every study of terrain.'

From Swords Around a Throne by John Elting, 129:

'Because he worked in his Emperor's shadow, Berthier's accomplishments seemed matters of routine. In 1800 he organized the Army of the Reserve and moved it across the St Bernard Pass into Italy; in 1805 he planned the Grande Armee's march from the English Channel into Austria; in 1809 set up the assault crossing of the Danube before Wagram; and in 1812 handled the unprecedented concentration for the invasion of Russia.'

Heinrich von Brandt tells of how well-organized and efficient the movement of the Vistula Legion from Spain to eastern Europe was-that was the result of Berthier's excellent planning for the movement.

In short, Berthier was the one indispensable marshal.

In 1800 Napoleon organized the Army of the Reserve into corps, and in his Correspondence he directs Moreau to do the same. Du Cugnac's excellent work on the Marengo campaign clearly demonstrates this new organization for the campaign, including the formation of the Cavalry Reserve under Murat.

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42flanker:

'Military Illustrated' in its final, unfortunate period of decline.

Yup! I brought Military Illustrated all the way up to issue 58 then cancelled my subscription because I could see the way it was going. Suffice to say that I trimmed my collection back to issue 50. Up to then, they were excellent magazines, but like Military Modelling, which was another excellent magazine, another mindset got into publishing them and destroyed them both almost overnight.

Gazzola:

I was joking, silly. Everyone knows the Brits were war mongering long before Napoleon came along. Thanks for the reminder! LOL

Yeah! Of course, you was…'LOL'

I think Napoleon would be highly amused by the posts about his height, especially by those who know the truth about how tall he was. And they are amusing posts.

dibble

Calm down, calm down! I think you take posts far too seriously or look too deep into them. Enjoy the humour, relax. And stop pinching my LOL. LOL

Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwnnnnnnn! Zzzzzzzzz! "navel-gazing"? Surely you mean 'receding-French-backs-gazing'?

indeed like in Crimea WWI Dunkirk-on-the-beaches-fleeding-French-ever-victorious-British and Mers-el-Kebir you can't imagine at what point they have a long particular tradition as having the English on their backs
or maybe because whole UK choose to ignore that for the French there is no honor nor merit to fight and beat the English because they are not regarded as soldiers and as a military nation but only shopkeepers and pirates contrary to the Russians Austrians and Prussians as recalled again Napoleon to his generals and officers after Maida, well the best military english weapon has always been Saint Georges's golden Cavalry

Still, we've not done badly for shopkeepers and pirates! Just imagine how much trouble we would have caused if we had been a "military nation"…

Lillian:

indeed like in Crimea WWI Dunkirk-on-the-beaches-fleeding-French-ever-victorious-British and Mers-el-Kebir you can't imagine at what point they have a long particular tradition as having the English on their backs
or maybe because whole UK choose to ignore that for the French there is no honor nor merit to fight and beat the English because they are not regarded as soldiers and as a military nation but only shopkeepers and pirates contrary to the Russians Austrians and Prussians as recalled again Napoleon to his generals and officers after Maida, well the best military english weapon has always been Saint Georges's golden Cavalry

The jealousy and hurt oozes out of this post.

Is this you?

Mister
Mariano Menendez replied to this topic on Quora

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Suffice to say that I replied…:)

It's a wonder no one posted a first that Napoleon founded the system of destroying huge armies in Russia but alas, like almost all his so-called accomplishments (that weren't) mentioned above, that too had already been done by the likes of Charles XII a hundred years earlier…

Seriously, Napoleon was surely, as I suggested above, the first head of government to send snatch squads across borders to kidnap and then judicially murder his political enemies. He invented extraordinary rendition, basically.

I'm sure inconvenient people and political adversaries were slotted before then. One thinks of Tsar Alexander bumping off his own dad (ellegedly). Where those instances differ, though, is that the party behind the whacking didn't do it openly, or out themselves ex post as having organised it. They stayed in the shadows and kept stumm.

So Richard III may well have done in the Princes in the Tower, but he didn't fetch them to England from a foreign country first and he didn't concoct a show trial; he just discreetly liquidated them.

Napoleon likewise liquidated the Duke of Enghien but the novel feature he added was that he wanted everyone to know he'd done it.

I maintain this was a genuine Napoleonic innovation.

Napoleon Bonaparte made full use of the telegraph by obtaining speedy information on enemy movements.

Wiki – Chappe Telegraph

dibble

And Napoleon was obviously in charge of the weather in 1812, wasn't he? Hey, could that be considered a first or an innovation-weather control? And obviously Wellington copied him and controlled the weather in 1815. LOL

sizes for artillery wheels etc heights lengths standerds for the 1 kilometer is everywhere the same

Gazzola.

Like Charles, his decision to invade Russia condemned his army. The disease and weather were (like the point of the lance, bayonet, sword, flying musket and cannonballs) the consequences of his action to invade and his policy of embargo enforcement. Anyway! It was logistics and disease that did for nappy. All the weather did was 'lick the plate'.

By-the-way! In 1815, the rain fell as hard on and hindered the Allies as much as it did the French. But again, It was all down to Nappy and his actions.

dibble

Er, weather control! Joke. Get it? Never mind.

The impression you give is that Napoleon planned the Russian campaign knowing that it would run as it did and would eventually fail? We have the luxury of hindsight-he did not. I think some people forget that, perhaps deliberately? And, in terms of throwing out the blame-as some people are so fond of doing-if Russia had not broken their agreement not to trade with Britain, 1812 probably would not have happened. But let's blame everything on one man. That is a distorted viewpoint on history based on silly bias against one man.

I don't think the weather hindered the allies as much in 1815 (I'm talking about 18th June), considering they were already in position at Waterloo.

Gazzola:

The person responsible for the failure is solely Nappy's

'He could not have launched his attack earlier at Mont St. Jean because?'…

I should stop joking if I were you as such excuses show there not to be any.

Slightly before his reign, "beginning in 1790 a French committee produced the metric system, a group of related measures that rose and fell by multiples of 10. So rational is the system that it was eventually adopted by the whole world—except for the United States."

dibble

That's like a football manager putting on a striker who fails to score. Obviously the manager must have known the striker would not score which is why he put him on and it is his fault the team lost the game! LOL

Yes, completely Napoleon's fault. And it was his fault that Ney ordered troops marching to Ligny as Napoleon planned, to return to Quatre Bras. It was also Napoleon's fault that Grouchy failed to stop the Prussians reaching the Waterloo battlefield on the 18th. Yep, Napoleon's fault. LOL

As for joking, one can not take your anti-Nap posts as anything other than a joke. LOL

Whose decision was it to call a quarter-pounder a "Royale with cheese"?

Gazzola

As for joking, one can not take your anti-Nap posts as anything other than a joke. LOL

A typical hurt, Nappy fawners reply…LOL :)

Tyranicle Nappy came, ordered and got his said orders handed back to him with a cover note "See ya' down the docks! Yer off on a cruise"

Whose decision was it to call a quarter-pounder a "Royale with cheese"?

It's the little things.

dibble

'a typical hurt, Nappy fawners reply'

One can offer a counter-reply 'a typical excuse and feeble description of anyone who admires or dares to say anything positive about Napoleon by a very hurt Nappy hater' LOL

I'm sure that you know full well that history is not as simple as you might want it to be, although I guess it might be easier for some people to throw the blame for everything on one person, rather than examine the reality, the complexity and the environmental and human factors involved in any battle or campaign.

Other than that, your posts do suggest you seem to be taking everything so personally. Are you related to Wellington by any chance? LOL