Napoleon On Facing Russia In The Winter

 

An excerpt from, "Napoleon On War" Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 372 - 375:

At Vitebsk on 13 August 1812, Napoleon justified his invasion plan for Russia in a lengthy monologue reported by Baron Fain. The text takes up several ideas referred to in previous books: the drive and impatience of French troops, the political dimension of strategy, the ineluctability of risk-taking in war, seeking battle so as to avoid stalemate:

. . .Our troops are happily heading forward. They enjoy wars of invasion. But a stationary, prolonged defensive campaign is not in the French genius. To halt behind rivers, to remain there stationed in shacks, to manoeuvre every day in order only to be in the same place after eight months of privation and woes, is that how we are used to waging war?

The lines of defence presented to you today by the Dnieper and Danube are merely illusory. Once winter arrives, you will see them filled with ice and effaced under snow.

Winter does not only threaten us with its cold weather; it also threatens us with diplomatic intrigues that might brew up behind our backs. Shall we allow these allies whom we have just won over, and who are still utterly astonished to no longer be fighting us and glory in following us, time to reflect on the oddity of their new position?

And why halt here for eight months, when twenty days would suffice for us to achieve our objective? Let us anticipate winter and reflections! We must strike promptly, on pain of jeopardizing everything. We must be in Moscow in a month, on pain of never entering it!

In war, fortune counts for half in everything. If one always awaited a complete conjuction of favourable circumstances, one would never finish anything.

In short, my plan of campaign is a battle and my whole policy is success.

All of Napoleon is in this quotation, which is like a conclusion. In the final chapter of Von Kriege, Clausewitz devotes several paragraphs to the 1812 campaign in Russia. For Napoleon, it was the first to fail. The excessive character of the undertaking, in terms of the forces committed and the theatre of operations itself, represented the culminating point of the Napoleonic Wars. For Clausewitz, the Emperor's failure did not stem from the fact that he advanced too rapidly or too far, as is generally believed. In essence, he could not have done differently. His campaign failed because the government of Russia remained firm and its people unshakeable. Napoleon was mistaken in his calculations. He did not assess his opponent correctly. 

. . .Napoleon had a proclamation written for the emancipation of the serfs, but kept it confidential as a form of possible intimidation. He did not want to cross certain boundaries and confided his desire to negotiate to Caulaincourt:

Hitherto, apart from the fact that Alexander burns his towns and cities so that we cannot live in them, we have fought a fairly good war. No disagreeable publications, no insults. He is wrong not to come to an agreement now that we have had a scrap. We would soon be in agreement and remain good friends.

To fight a 'fairly good war': Napoleon was still sufficiently marked by the age of Enlightenment not to desire a full unleashing of force. As we saw in Book I, he quipped that he regretted not having resorted to it, but he did not open Pandora's Box. Such restraint was not due solely to the still relatively rudimentary state of technologies of destruction.

On several occasions, Napoleon sketched an analysis of Russian power, which frightened him:

Russia is a frightening power that seems to conquer Europe. With its Cossacks, Tartars, and Poles, it can put thousands of cavalry on horse everywhere. There would not be enough horses in Europe to withstand it. In the past, three powers opposed its expansion: Sweden, but it has not been able to do anything since the loss of Finland; Poland, but it now forms part of the Russian Empire; and the Turks, who are null.

Las Cases reports further considerations on Russia and, beyond it, on the future of Europe:

The Emperor passed on to what he called the admirable situation of Russia against the rest of Europe, to the immensity of its mass in the event of invasion. He depicted this power situated under the pole, sustained by eternal ice which, as and when necessary, rendered it inaccessible. It could be attacked, he said, only for three or four months, or one-quarter of the year, whereas it had the whole year---twelve months---against us. It offered attackers nothing but the harsh conditions, suffering, and privations of a desert land, a dead or inert nature, whereas its peoples launched themselves with zest towards the delight of our south.

In addition to these physical features, said the Emperor, joined to its sizeable, sedentary, brave, tough, devoted, passive population were enormous tribes, whose normal state was deprivation and vagabondage. 'One cannot but tremble at the idea of such a mass, which can be attacked neither by the coasts nor in the rear; which floods over us with impunity, inundating everything if it triumphs or withdrawing into the ice, the heart of desolation, death, which have become its reserves if it is defeated; and all this with the ability to reemerge immediately if required. Is this not the hydra's head, the Antaeus of the fable, who could be finished off only by grasping him bodily and suffocating him in one's arms? But where is Hercules to be found? It only fell to us to dare to pretend to the role and, it must be admitted, our attempts were clumsy.'

Napoleon On Death In Battle

An excerpt from, "Napoleon On War" Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 59 - 62:

One of the worst moral dilemmas faced by Napoleon in war involved the plague victims in Jaffa in March 1799. A situation of this kind can be met with in any era of history and puts one in mind of certain American Westerns and war films. Given the impossibility of transporting the soldiers stricken by the plague, and in order to avoid them falling into Turkish hands and suffering appalling tortures, General Bonaparte probably had poison administered to them, which resulted in a painless death, as Bertrand recounts:

It must be remembered that it was a question of not leaving them prisoners in the hands of the Turks, who in their remaining twelve hours of life would have cut them into pieces, applied molten lead to them . . .etc. Had it been my wife or son, I would have behaved similarly if I could not take them with me, because the first principle of charity is to do to others what we would have done to ourselves [ . . .]. On this one must consult not civilians, but soldiers. Ask the 53rd. They would speak with one voice.

The British 53rd infantry regiment was responsible at the time for guarding the prisoner of Saint Helena. The appeal to the opinion of soldiers of another nationality testifies once more to Napoleon's proximity to all members of the profession. His lack of hesitation over taking the decision at Jaffa will always be open to discussion. He did not concern himself with the prevailing morality, or the teaching of the Church, when adopting the course of action that he sincerely believed to be least painful for his men.

Death in battle is an outcome that can be anticipated by any soldier. It is not part of our intention to study Napoleon's view on the subject in depth, but there was unquestionably a certain fatalism about him. As we have already seen in some quotations, and as we shall see later, while his way of waging war did not spare men, he sincerely believed rapid operations invariably avoided greater suffering. Frequently confronted with the death of men close to him, he sometimes gave vent to his compassion. We know the deep impression made on him by the spectacle of the battlefield of Eylau after the terrible clash of 8 February 1807. He had these words to say:

A father who loses his children savours no charm in the victory. When the heart speaks, even glory has no more illusions.

He wrote to Josephine:

My friend, I am still at Eylau. The ground is littered with the dead and wounded. This is not the best part of war; one suffers and the soul is oppressed at the sight of so many victims.

On 26 June 1813, at Dresden, Napoleon showed a different side of himself to Prince Metternich. If we are to believe the Austrian diplomat's memoirs, the Emperor, in a moment of anger it is true, shouted:

I have grown up on the battlefield and a man like me hardly concerns himself about the lives of a million men.

On Saint Helena, he gave it to be understood that he had ended up being accustomed to frequenting death:

It is quite true that the idea of God is a very natural idea. At all times, among all nations, people have had it. But one dies so quickly; in war I have seen so many people die immediately and pass so rapidly from the state of life to that of death that it has made me familiar with death.

On another occasion, when speaking of a book by the naturalist Buffon, he explained:

What he says about death is good. It is not to be feared, because five-sixths [of men] die without suffering and those who seem to be in agony suffer little, for those who have recovered have no memory of it. So the machinery is disrupted and pain is not felt as acutely as people believe, because it leaves no traces. Charles XII, it is said, carried his hand to his sword when a cannon ball or bullet struck him dead. So the pain was not such as to deprive him of the desire to defend himself; it was not extreme.

We owe to Napoleon some of the most beautiful letters of condolence that have ever been written:

Your nephew Elliott has been killed on the battlefield of Arcola. This young man had familiarized himself with weaponry; he marched at the head of the columns several times; he would have made an admirable officer one day. He died with glory in face of the enemy; he did not suffer for one moment. What reasonable man would not envy such a death? Who, amid the vicissitudes of existence, would not want to leave a world that is often despicable thus? Who among us has not regretted a hundred times not being shielded thus from the impact of calumny, envy, and all the odious passions that seem well-nigh exclusively to govern the conduct of men?

Your husband was killed by cannon fire, while fighting alongside it. Without suffering, he died the gentlest death, the one most envied by soldiers. 

I feel your pain acutely. The moment that separates us from the object we love is terrible; it isolates us from the earth; it causes the body to experience the convulsions of agony. The faculties of the soul are destroyed; it retains its links with the universe only through a nightmare that changes everything. In this situation we feel that, if nothing compelled us to go on living, it would be much better to die. But when, after these initial thoughts, we press our children to our heart, tears and tender feelings revive nature and we live for our children. Yes, Madame, you will cry with them; you will raise them in childhood and cultivate their youth; you will speak to them of their father, of your grief, of the loss they have suffered, of that suffered by the Republic. Having attached your soul to the world through filial love and maternal love, appreciate the friendship and keen interest I shall always take in my friend's wife as something. Be persuaded that he is one of the men, few in number, who warrant being the hope of grief, because they feel the sorrows of the soul acutely.

This piece of eloquence, remarkable for its humanity, envinces a profound sensitivity. Rarely have such appreciate words found to console a loss. Napoleon understood the pain of others. On several occasions, he is known to have cried after a battle. He also made a major contribution to developing a rhetoric of military heroism and glorious death. If the bloodbaths of the First World War have doubtless destroyed the credibility of this kind of discourse in Western Europe for ever, we must not be anachronistic. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, life was so hard and life-expectancy so short that death in battle could seem like an outcome which, if not enviable, was at least acceptable.

The Weaponization of Ukrainian Nationalism

The neocons and Zionists in Washington really did a number on Ukraine. 

These nerds, and that's what they are, treated Ukrainians like retards, and goaded them into fighting an unwinnable war of choice against their much stronger neighbour. 

It would be like Chinese Communists egging on Canada to attack America, promising an endless supply of weapons and money. And the dumb Ukrainians fell for it largely because of two factors, one historical and the other more contemporary.  

The Nazi, anti-Russian sentiment was always there in Ukrainian society, but it was a dormant flame that was rekindked and fed non-stop behind the scenes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, culminating in a sizable political and street force that could threaten Ukrainian officials without consequences.

The CIA, MI6, and Mossad fed the Nazi fire without regard to Ukraine's long-term future because they envision no future for the country whatsoever. They have treated the country like a giant weapons lab. And the Ukrainians let them, so, let's not cry too much for poor Ukraine. 

Hate makes one very stupid and short-sighted, and the anti-Russian hate that's been endlessly generated in Ukraine has stopped the country's progress and development. They deserve their fate. 

If they want to destroy their country for Zionist clowns and Neocon nerds let them. The same applies for all these NATO colonies and EU puppet states.

Napoleon On How To Make Good Soldiers

An excerpt from, "Napoleon On War" Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 133 - 135:

The army must not attract bad or dangerous elements:

There is no need for brigands in Italy or France and putting bad elements in the troops that make up an army is a bad move. That's the method of Neapolitans and of countries that have no army [ . . . .] I want all the regiments of my army to be good and suitably composed.

You only need a few men per company to corrupt a whole regiment.

Discipline does not do everything. An army is made up of men and they must be treated as such. In discussion with British officers on Saint Helena, Napoleon told them several times that he adjudged British discipline too harsh; that it was necessary to abolish caning, at least after a certain length of service:

that men are what one makes them and that their character is improved in accordance with the way people behave towards them.

[ . . .] to demoralize people is not the way to get the best out of them. What honour can a man possibly have who is flogged before his comrades. He loses all feeling, and would as soon fight against as for his country, if he were better paid by the opposite party. When the Austrians had possession of Italy, they vainly attempted to make soldiers of the Italians. They either deserted as fast as they raised them, or else, when compelled to advance against an enemy, they ran away on the first fire. It was impossible to keep together a single regiment. When I got to Italy, and began to raise soldiers, the Austrians laughed at me, and said that it was in vain, that they had been trying for a long time, and that it was not in the nature of the Italians to fight or to make good soldiers. Notwithstanding this, I raised many thousands of Italians, who fought with a bravery equal to the French, and did not desert me even in my adversity. What was the cause? I abolished flogging and the stick, which the Austrians had adopted. I promoted those amongst the soldiers who had talents, and made many of them generals. I substituted honour and emulation for terror and the lash.

No one has known how to speak to soldiers, and appeal to their sense of honour, better than Napoleon. Sometimes it was enough for the soldiers to know that they formed part of an army commanded by him in person:

You know how much words do for soldiers: thus make it known to the various semi-brigades that they form the 2nd and 3rd division of the Army of Reserve.

In 1807, the reserve divisions had to feel part of the Grande Armee:

Take particular care over their food and have them given supplies that are at least as good as those for your troops, because they must not think that they are reject troops in the army corps. Men are what one wants them to be.

The Poles have officers who are willing. The way they will become worth something is to tell them so, to convince them of it. If headquarters is told every day that they are worthless, we shall get nothing from them.

A fine uniform contributes to the soldier's sense of honour:

Furthermore, the soldier must be concerned with his condition, must invest his inclinations, his honour in it. That is why fine uniforms, etc., do good. A trifle often gets people who would not stay to stand firm under fire.

To stimulate emulation, honours are also required. This standpoint was fervently defended before the Conseil d'Etat in connection with the plan to establish the Legion d'honneur:

I challenge anyone to show me an ancient or modern republic in which there are no honours. People call them trifles. Well, it is with trifles that one leads men. I would not say that to a tribune, but in a council of wise men and statesmen, one must say everything. I do not believe that the French people like liberty and equality; the French have not been changed by ten years of revolution; they are what the Gauls were----proud and fickle. They have but one sentiment: honour. It must therefore be nourished; they need honours. See how the people prostrate themselves before the honours of foreigners: they have been surprised by them and they do not fail to wear them.

Voltaire called soldiers five sous a day Alexanders. He was right; that is what they are. Do you think that you would make men fight by analysis? Never. That is good only for the scholar in his study. Soldiers need glory, decorations, rewards. The armies of the Republic have done great things because they were composed of the sons of labourers and good farmers, not rabble; because the officers had taken the place of those of the ancien regime, but also out of a sense of honour. On the same principle, the armies of Louis XIV likewise did great things.

Napoleon made honour the primary military quality, thus restoring a 'noble' value of the ancien regime to an army hailing from the Revolution. By the number of its occurrences and related passages, the word honour occupies a central place in the Memorial de Sainte-Helene. With 242 occurences, it is one of the primary words of Napoleonic discourse. Napoleon also employs the expression 'field of honour', as if to mask the harshness of war. For Didier Le Gall, this involves 'a premeditated discursive strategy that must ultimately diffuse new values, in order to mould the conduct of men and rally a large number of individuals around the Emperor's person'.

Honour cannot be bought:

The troops must not become accustomed to receiving money for acts of courage; it is enough to write them letters of commendation.

One does not pay for valour with money.

Napoleon On What Makes A Good General

 

An excerpt from, "Napoleon On War" Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 46-48:

Napoleon proliferated considerations on the qualities required of a general, above all on Saint Helena. Montholon, Gourgaud, O'Meara, and Las Cases were the recipients of statements that overlap:

The first quality of a supreme commander is having a cool head, which receives accurate impressions of objects, which never gets heated, does not let itself be dazzled, or carried away by good or bad news; the successive or simultaneous sensations it receives in the course of a day are ordered in it and only occupy the place they warrant. For good sense and reason result from a comparison between several sensations taken into equal consideration. There are men who, on account of their physical and moral constitution, make a picture of everything. Moreover, whatever knowledge, spirit, courage, and good qualities they have, nature has not summoned them to the command of armies and the direction of major war operations.

Once more, Clausewitz offers some very similar observations. The leader must have 'an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth: and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead'. Such courage in the face of responsibilities, of moral danger, is 'courage de l'esprit'---in French in Clausewitz's text----although it is not, strictly speaking, an initiative of the spirit, but of temperament. Clausewitz also refers to 'determination': its function is to remove the torment of doubt and the dangers of hesitation. Napoleon continues in the same register without excessive modesty:

To be a good general, one must possess knowledge of mathematics. It serves to rectify one's ideas in countless circumstances. Perhaps I owe my success to my mathematical ideas. A general must never create mental pictures; that is the worst thing of all. Just because a supporter has abandoned a post, it should not be thought that the whole army is involved. My great talent, what most distinguishes me, is seeing everything clearly. It is even my kind of eloquence; it is seeing the substance of the issue straight away, in all its aspects. It is the perpendicular that is shorter than the oblique.

Napoleon's passion for mathematics dates back at least to the age of 8. He shone in the subject at school in Brienne. His tastes did not incline him towards literature, Latin, languages, and ornamental arts. His eminently practical turn of mind pushed him towards the sciences, which seemed to him necessary for the profession of war he had chosen.

. . .A good general, he said, must not 'create pictures': he must not allow himself to be easily impressed; he must keep a cool head, for war is made up of dramatic, unexpected events. In other words, the general must have a firm character. Spirit is a different quality, which makes it possible to see clearly in a confused situation---something that approximates to the coup d'oeil.

. . .Character and spirit must be in balance, as Las Cases reports:

It was rare and difficult, he said on another occasion, to combine all the qualities required for a great general. What was most desirable, and immediately distinguished someone from the run of the mill, was for spirit or talent to be in balance with character or courage: that is what he called being broad at the bottom and top alike. If, he continued, courage was overly dominant, a general would venture recklessly beyond his designs. By contrast, he did not dare to accomplish them if his character or courage was inferior to his spirit. He then cited the Viceroy, whose sole merit was this balance, which nevertheless sufficed to make him a very distinguished man.

After this, we spoke much of physical courage and moral courage; and on the subject of physical courage the Emperor said that it was impossible for Murat and Ney not to be brave; but that you could not have less of a brain than them----especially the former.

As for moral courage, he said he had very rarely met with the moral courage of the early hours; that is to say, the courage of the improviser who, despite the most sudden events, nevertheless allows the same freedom of spirit, judgment, and decision-making. He did not hesitate to pronounce that he had found himself to possess the most of this kind of courage, and that he had seen very few people who had not remained far behind him.

After that, he said that people had a very inaccurate idea of the fortitude required to fight, in full awareness of the consequences, one of those great battles on which the fate of an army, a country, the possession of a throne, are going to depend. Also he observed that one rarely found generals in a hurry to give battle: 'They took up position, established themselves, meditated their stratagems; but then began their indecisiveness; and there was nothing more difficult---and yet more precious----than being capable of making your mind up.'

Military genius is a gift from heaven, but the most essential quality of a supreme commander is firmness of character and a determination to win at any cost.

As we saw above, after coup d'œil, Clausewitz cites determination as the second quality essential to a general. He also refers to firmness, strength of character, self-control----all qualities evoked by Napoleon:

[ . . .] it is will-power, character, application, and audacity that made me what I am. 

It is through vigour and energy that one saves one's troops, that one wins their esteem [and] commands respect from the malicious.

The essential quality of a general is strength of character and that is a gift from heaven. I prefer Lefebvre to Mathieu Dumas. Lefebvre had fire in his belly. You see that in the last instance he wanted to defend Paris and he was certainly right; it could have been defended. Turenne did not shine for his spirit, but he had the genius of the general.

Strength of character, vigour, spirit of decisiveness are therefore the predominant qualities---even more necessary than talent and spirit, notions bound up with a capacity for intuition, imagination, and also intellectual training, education, and knowledge:

In war, one must not have so much spirit. The simplest is the best.

Prince Jerome received the following reply in 1807:

Moreover, your letter contains too much spirit. It is not required in war. What is needed is accuracy, character, and simplicity.