Waterloo battle(and other Napoleons battles) (1 Viewer)

[Aleš]

I will love to hear your point of a wiew of a waterloo battle(and any other Napoleons battles).
Why did he lost?
Where he make mistake?
How the Napoleon who was win so many battles lost the most immportant battle?
What happened?
Did he fight always the same so the oponents read him,or he make a strategy acording the battlefield,the enemy,the weather,...?
Did he lost because he make a bad tactics or he just run out of luck?
WHAD DID GO WRONG?

 

[Grognard]

A few things went wrong. Among those: Berthier and other experienced generals were not present, the French army has lost of a lot of good soldiers during the Russian fiasco and the new recruits were not as experienced, Ney made many mistakes at Quatre Bras (wasting precious time to secure this strategic carrefour before the brits arrived) and then wasting all the French cavalery on the Bristish squares, many blunders on the communication side happened, Grouchy got lost chasing the Prussians and never realized that they were not where he thought they were.
Despite all of this, it was a very close call since Napoleon has one more time succeeded in spliting the opposite forces (Bristish and Prussians). I guess he just missed a few thousand men to finish the job (Grouchy's). Without those he had to engage his Guard (the only reserve left) and the final straw happened when they started to retreat in front of the heavy British fire which at this point, triggered a general debacle of the French army. If Grouchy would have been back on time (I think he had 30K men) the fate of the battle would have been different. So yes Wellington and Blucher were very lucky on that one.

 

[Aleš]

hm,so even he have new recruts,less army then oponents,not all generals present,...he still almost win!???
Amazing this person Napoleon Bonaparte.
But still he is the one that put him self in this position,he know before the battle that he have new recruts,that he have not enough man,that not all of his generals are present,...so the mistake is his.
Maybe he was to proud to call it off(the battle) even that deep in his heart he know it is a gamble and that a lot of his man will lost their lives.
In that case he is just a selfish fool,not carrying about his man,just his pride.
Who tell this Groucho to chase Prussians?Napoleon?Did he give this Groucho a wrong informations where to look?
If the British was against napoleon,the Prussians was against Napoleon,The Russians was against Napoleon,...who was than his Alies?
Where were forces from Italia,Spain,Austria,...?

 

[Gazza]

WHAD DID GO WRONG?

Nothing !!! The best team won !!!

 

[Aleš]

Nothing !!! The best team won !!!

i am not sure if the best team won.
Because let be honest,Napoleon win like 50 battles before and this Wellington win one and now he is the hero?
I do not think it is best the person who win one or two battle and someone who win 50 and lost 2-3 is the looser.
But i think Napoleon was "full of ****" because first he rise from the people revolution and fight agains emperor than later him self become one.He say he didnt like kings and emperors,but he become one of them(sssshhhhiiiiiiittttttttt)
But in England there is also some one who is capable of winning in the time of need,even the kings sucks all the way)
There is always someone like Nelson,Wellington,Churchil,...who will take things in his hands and mess things.
But i like this Napoleon i really think he was a gambler,he play war like it is a video game,a strategy game on computer,he was more than an adventurer than a real fighter.
Why didnt he command the leggion?
He just stood in the hill with his emperors guard and give command.
I can do that too.
What is the worst it can happened,they will die like 50000 man,well i didnt see Napoleon worry too much

 

[Aleš]

why didnt he lead the attack on the horse?
Ups,maybe he was too short to mounted a hourse
He have a complex of a small man.
But if he really wannt to give a hope an dmoral to his soldiers than he really need to lead his cavalry himslef charge!!!!!!!!!!
That will lift the spirit,imagine french troops attacking british squares(why the french didnt crush this squares with cannons??)
and than they see Napoleon and his imperial guard marching towards britains,...i think the britains will have their pants full

 

[Spitfrnd]

i am not sure if the best team won.
Because let be honest,Napoleon win like 50 battles before and this Wellington win one and now he is the hero?
I do not think it is best the person who win one or two battle and someone who win 50 and lost 2-3 is the looser.

I am afraid your data here is a bit incomplete. Napoleon was fantastically successful during the Revolutionary period prior to 1805 winning maybe 20 battles with only 1 loss. After 1805, his record was about 28 wins to 9 losses and 3 very expensive ties. By the way, Napoleon was of average height and an excellent horseman who did ride that day. He was however rather ill and probably not at his best.

Wellington was hardly a one battle hero and in fact his won/loss percentage was superior to Napoleon. In the Peninsula theater of the Napoleonic Wars and subsequent invasion of southern France, where Britain fought, he was unbeatable, winning every one of his battles against nearly all of Napoleon's famous and otherwise successful Marshals. He also was undefeated in a very difficult Indian campaign preceding the Peninsula. He never faced Napoleon until Waterloo but for tactics and military genius the two commanders were well matched. While their styles differed, Wellington was noted for his care in the conservation of his men while Napoleon was never afraid to lose entire Corps to gain a tactical advantage. If you were a soldier at that time, your odds of survival were much better with Wellington.

As to Waterloo, both commanders made their share of mistakes but Napoleon made the critical ones. As Wellington noted, it was a close run thing but it is fairly clear that to win, Napoleon needed to beat the British first. By dividing his forces when he discovered the Prussian advance, he lost that opportunity and by allowing Ney to attack without infantry support, he lost the effective part of his cavalry for no gain. Napoleon himself said that he lost Waterloo due to the "obstinate bravery of the English troops" which was no doubt a factor, as was Wellington's well practiced use of the thin red lines to deliver devastating volleys into the dense French columns. Could it have gone the other way; like many great battles, of that there is little doubt.

 

[tullock]

An interesting fact about the Allies at Waterloo was that only 17% of the Infantry were British.The bulk were Germans,Dutch and Belgium.
Jeff

 

[FirstLegion]

A few things went wrong. Among those: Berthier and other experienced generals were not present, the French army has lost of a lot of good soldiers during the Russian fiasco and the new recruits were not as experienced, Ney made many mistakes at Quatre Bras (wasting precious time to secure this strategic carrefour before the brits arrived) and then wasting all the French cavalery on the Bristish squares, many blunders on the communication side happened, Grouchy got lost chasing the Prussians and never realized that they were not where he thought they were.
Despite all of this, it was a very close call since Napoleon has one more time succeeded in spliting the opposite forces (Bristish and Prussians). I guess he just missed a few thousand men to finish the job (Grouchy's). Without those he had to engage his Guard (the only reserve left) and the final straw happened when they started to retreat in front of the heavy British fire which at this point, triggered a general debacle of the French army. If Grouchy would have been back on time (I think he had 30K men) the fate of the battle would have been different. So yes Wellington and Blucher were very lucky on that one.

Actually, the French Army during the 100 days was probably the most experienced army ever fielded by Napoleon. There were no raw recruits, all of the men at Waterloo were seasoned veterans of previous campaigns. It was a fragile army however as they didn't trust their leadership as the majority of them were serving the Bourbons only weeks before...

 

[FirstLegion]

I will love to hear your point of a wiew of a waterloo battle(and any other Napoleons battles).
Why did he lost?
Where he make mistake?
How the Napoleon who was win so many battles lost the most immportant battle?
What happened?
Did he fight always the same so the oponents read him,or he make a strategy acording the battlefield,the enemy,the weather,...?
Did he lost because he make a bad tactics or he just run out of luck?
WHAD DID GO WRONG?

As entire books are written on these questions, I'll just touch on one point. Waterloo was hardly the "most important" battle, it is merely viewed with an over stated sense of importance because it was Napoleon's last battle, he was defeated, and the victors write the history. Even had Napoleon been victorious at Waterloo it would have mattered little to the strategic situation as in all liklihood the French would have been overcome by the overwhelming allied armies massing on the French borders shortly after. I tend to think of the 100 Days Campaign like Wacht am Rhein - the final great offensive of an empire in it's death throes the outcome of which really doesn't change anything. There were probably 10+ battles prior to Waterloo, all of which would have been viewed as "the most important" battle except that Napoleon won them.

Best,

Matt

 

[Aleš]

well i think the Napoleon downfall begin when he march on Russia and than he retreat by a smart Russian tactics.He did enter the Moscow but with no spoils of war(he run out of food,army low moral,winter,....) so he go home and during hi sretreat back home lost a lot of army.WHAT A BIG MISTAKE!!!
Why is that everybody wannt this Russia(Napoleon,Hitler)?
Both of them get burned on Russia.
Why if you already have a big part of Europe attack this Russians?
Why they just do not make peace with Russians,so they have east side covered,so they can do what ever they do in Europe with no affraid of fighting on more oponents.
And why England and Russia are not so much allies if the history always teach us that when this two countries stood together they always win (like defeating Napoleon,Hitler),they are always on the right side but i think this is more a matter of need than a good healthy friendship.
Am i right?

 

[Spitfrnd]

An interesting fact about the Allies at Waterloo was that only 17% of the Infantry were British.The bulk were Germans,Dutch and Belgium.
Jeff

That is interesting. I have seen that number closer to 33% if you count by British units and the British units also suffered about the same percentage of Wellington's losses.

 

[Spitfrnd]

As entire books are written on these questions, I'll just touch on one point. Waterloo was hardly the "most important" battle, it is merely viewed with an over stated sense of importance because it was Napoleon's last battle, he was defeated, and the victors write the history. Even had Napoleon been victorious at Waterloo it would have mattered little to the strategic situation as in all liklihood the French would have been overcome by the overwhelming allied armies massing on the French borders shortly after. I tend to think of the 100 Days Campaign like Wacht am Rhein - the final great offensive of an empire in it's death throes the outcome of which really doesn't change anything. There were probably 10+ battles prior to Waterloo, all of which would have been viewed as "the most important" battle except that Napoleon won them.

I don't know Matt but I think Waterloo was indeed an important battle for the future of Europe and obviously Napoleon. To me there is some convincing support for the view that had Napoleon won, the allies would have accepted a peace that left Napoleon in power in France and that Napoleon at that time had little appetite left for further conquest so he might very well have lived out his days as Emperor. I might also suggest that Napoleon lost a couple of previous battles that might have qualified as fairly important and some of the others he won were very expensive and thus rather important to the French decline.

 

[FirstLegion]

I don't know Matt but I think Waterloo was indeed an important battle for the future of Europe and obviously Napoleon. To me there is some convincing support for the view that had Napoleon won, the allies would have accepted a peace that left Napoleon in power in France and that Napoleon at that time had little appetite left for further conquest so he might very well have lived out his days as Emperor. I might also suggest that Napoleon lost a couple of previous battles that might have qualified as fairly important and some of the others he won were very expensive and thus rather important to the French decline.

I agree with all that you say except perhaps the separate peace issue in 1815. I don't think there is any way a separate peace would have been signed had Napoleon won at Waterloo. Winning at Waterloo and utterly destroying the British and Prussian armies and knocking those two nations out of the war are two different things. Even if he had somehow achieved the latter, the forces aligned against him were pretty overwhelming and had shown themselves in the past to have a measure of resolve to finish the job.

Just to clarify, I didn't say Waterloo wasn't important, only that I don't feel it was the "most important". There were many battles of the period that were important, Waterloo just happens to be the bookend after which everything pretty much returned to status quo of pre-revolutionary France. One could argue that Austerlitz was important because it solidified Frances hold on continental Europe for the next 10 years. Trafalgar was certainly important because it closed the door on any ambitions the French had on conquering the UK. Borodino was important because it was France's last opportunity to possibly emerge victorious from the Russian campaign and maintain their hold on Europe. Berezina was important because the French army should have been wiped out and Napoleon himself taken prisoner or killed. Lutzen and Bautzen were important because the French failed to destroy the Prussian and Russian armies thus giving Austria the confidence to join the coalition and stacking the odds hopelessly against the French. Leipzig was important because it was truly the beginning of the end and pushed the limits of warfare beyond the command and control capabilities of a single man on a horse. It was also a glimpse of the size and scope of future European military conflict - massive multi-national armies battling across miles and miles of battlefront. Even in discussing the 100 Days Campaign, Ligny was perhaps more important than Waterloo as Napoleon needed to utterly destroy the Prussians and his failure to do so is what makes Waterloo possible.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are many important battles. It's not that Napoleon won these battles that makes them important, in many of the examples above the French won but didn't win decisively enough or were defeated. I just think that Waterloo was the last battle and hence why it is viewed with an elevated sense of importantance. It is also one of the few Napoleonic land battles of real strategic consequence involving the British Army and hence why it is so written about in the English language - in fact, the most written about battle in history. And before you say anything, I'm not discounting the penninsula! You know my opinion on this - the war in Spain, though important in many respects, was never the main strategic theater. Even so there are far more books written about the Penninsula battles in English than there are books about Austerlitz....

Using another WWII analogy, it would be difficult to argue that the Battle of Normandy or the Battle of the Bulge was more important than Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain. The former offer more direct and instantaneous results while the latter do much less to change the immediate situation but have far reaching consequences that make the others even possible.

 

[Grognard]

Actually, the French Army during the 100 days was probably the most experienced army ever fielded by Napoleon. There were no raw recruits, all of the men at Waterloo were seasoned veterans of previous campaigns. It was a fragile army however as they didn't trust their leadership as the majority of them were serving the Bourbons only weeks before...

I don't think you can discard the heavy losses of experienced soldiers the Grande Armée suffered during the ill-managed Russian campaign. I do believe that he (Napoléon) never recovered from that one...

 

[FirstLegion]

I don't think you can discount the heavy losses of experienced soldiers the Grande Armée suffered during the ill-managed Russian campaign. I do believe that he (Napoléon) never recovered from that one...

Oh, I agree with you that the French Army was gutted during the Russian campaign, particularly the cavalry arm which was the French achilles heel throughout 1813 and is the single biggest reason for the French being unable to exploit their victories at Lutzen, Bautzen, and Dresden. However, the Marie Louises of the massive conscript armies of 1813 and 1814 were seasoned veterans by 1815. Also, the Armee du Nord was a relatively small army and was entirely French and wasn't composed of the minor nations of dubious loyalty which made up the 1812-1814 armies. Finally, displaced soldiers of the Grande Armee upon Napoleon's defeat in 1814 had little to do in the peace that followed and were only too eager to rally to the tricolor again, so it was an army with extremely high morale and a sense of purpose. The biggest problem with the Armee du Nord was its leadership. The field army was one of Napoleon's finest.

Remember, I'm only talking about the Armee du Nord. The several hundred thousand French soldiers being mobilized in 1815 to defend the eastern borders of France were probably lower quality conscripts and depot troops.

 

[Aleš]

I don't think you can discard the heavy losses of experienced soldiers the Grande Armée suffered during the ill-managed Russian campaign. I do believe that he (Napoléon) never recovered from that one...

This is what i am talking about too.
Why he make such a mistake to go so far from home,from the provisions,shelter,....what was the purpose to attack Russia.I think a lot of a normal ordinary French people start to doubt of their Emperor good brains.
Ok,i will support the idea of attacking Russia AFTER the all Europe is already conquer so there is no enemies near France,but to go to this sick adventure with no good reason just to have a bigger empire on map,just to have some more blue colour on map,just for afew dots on map,...it is sick.
Just for this one mistake a lot of people die and than the other armies like English,Prussians,...get more courage to see that the French can lost too.Than even their alies like Austrians turn back on them....
Can any one tell me more about this Borodino Battle?

 

[tullock]

That is interesting. I have seen that number closer to 33% if you count by British units and the British units also suffered about the same percentage of Wellington's losses.

An excellent reference book for all Napoleonic war enthusiasts has got to be 'The Waterloo Companion' by Mark Adkin.This huge work is packed with colour plates,diagrams and detailed orders of battle and exact strengths.The figure of 17% is taken from this work and Peter Hofschroer's excellent '1815.The Waterloo Campaign.The German Victory'.
Remember,the figure I quoted was for infantry only.If British cavalry and artillery units are included the figure goes up to around 25%.
Jeff

 

[Spitfrnd]

An excellent reference book for all Napoleonic war enthusiasts has got to be 'The Waterloo Companion' by Mark Adkin.This huge work is packed with colour plates,diagrams and detailed orders of battle and exact strengths.The figure of 17% is taken from this work and Peter Hofschroer's excellent '1815.The Waterloo Campaign.The German Victory'.
Remember,the figure I quoted was for infantry only.If British cavalry and artillery units are included the figure goes up to around 25%.
Jeff

You are quite right Jeff that is a great Waterloo resourse which I also have and interestingly enough Jeff I just added the unit numbers that were given in Adkin's book to come up with that number that includes artillery but their numbers are small. Perhaps he forgot to add his own numbers or perhaps he included the units that did not fight at Waterloo in that 17% value.

 

[Spitfrnd]

I agree with all that you say except perhaps the separate peace issue in 1815. I don't think there is any way a separate peace would have been signed had Napoleon won at Waterloo. Winning at Waterloo and utterly destroying the British and Prussian armies and knocking those two nations out of the war are two different things. Even if he had somehow achieved the latter, the forces aligned against him were pretty overwhelming and had shown themselves in the past to have a measure of resolve to finish the job.....

Well I respect your opinion but I can't quite agree that those forces had the same resolve in 1815 that they did on those past occasions. Moreover, I think a decisive French win against the virtually unbeaten British would have been more that a little intimidating to the remaining allies and certainly a huge moral boost to the French. I also question whether Britain and Prussia would have had an interest in continuing the war after such a defeat if their security and economic interests were reasonably accommodated.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are many important battles. It's not that Napoleon won these battles that makes them important, in many of the examples above the French won but didn't win decisively enough or were defeated. I just think that Waterloo was the last battle and hence why it is viewed with an elevated sense of importance. It is also one of the few Napoleonic land battles of real strategic consequence involving the British Army and hence why it is so written about in the English language - in fact, the most written about battle in history.....

I agree there were more than a few important battles. However, the English speaking interest in Waterloo is hardly surprising. For them and their descendents (myself included), it was the crowning achievement for a much outnumbered but very successful British army of the period that because of the battle's location and the commanders and forces involved, finally enabled the British army to complete its emergence from the shadow of Britain's long respected navy. Besides, Austerlitz did not end these wars; Waterloo, whether on not the French end was ultimately inevitable, did.

And before you say anything, I'm not discounting the peninsula! You know my opinion on this - the war in Spain, though important in many respects, was never the main strategic theater. Even so there are far more books written about the Peninsula battles in English than there are books about Austerlitz....
....

No it was not the main theater but quite important and very interesting nonetheless, particularly to the English, Spanish and Portuguese speaking part of the world. Battles such as Rolica, Vimeiro, Corunna, Bucaco, Fuentes de Onoro, Salamanca, Vitoria and Toulouse (on French soil) each had their own importance to turning the tide against the Emperor. Again, since these were victories for the British forces involved, it is not surprising they would be of greater interest to English speaking people than a French / Austrian / Russian battle, however large and otherwise important to the people of those nations.