What if ... Napoleon had won?

[SKILORD]

What if Napoleon had won in his struggle for French domination of Europe?

You choose which try and how.

 

[God]

There are too many whatifs threads.

And Napoleon didn't stand a chance in winning. He screwed up in everything. He was lousy general. I'll never understand why people admire him so much. He managed to only defeat Prussia and Austria. He lost to Russia, he lost to Britain, Spain was in gurreila war. His ideas and schemes didn't work out.

 

[Azale]

I'e read several theories about what would have happened if Napoleon had conquered Europe, they all seem to come to the same point. After an extended period of time, Napoleon wouldn't have been able to control the whole region and a a large series of successions would have occured.

 

[napoleon526]

Originally posted by God
And Napoleon didn't stand a chance in winning. He screwed up in everything. He was lousy general. I'll never understand why people admire him so much. He managed to only defeat Prussia and Austria. He lost to Russia, he lost to Britain, Spain was in gurreila war. His ideas and schemes didn't work out.

Blasphemy!

He lost to Russia? 3/4 of the allied army at Austerlitz was Russian! The tsar Alexander I was actually in command at the battle, and was forced to flee ingloriously from the field, weeping like a child!

Have you ever hear of the battle of Friedland, Mr. God???? Napoleon managed to successfully divert Russian reserves away from their center, then sent 10,000 cavalry crashing through their lines! After that he pretty much dictated the terms of peace to Alexander at their conference at Tilsit. He may have 'lost' to Russia five years later in 1812, but it was the Russian winter that defeated him, not the Russian Army.

He managed to ONLY defeat Prussia and Austria??? Prussia and Austria were two of the major European powers!!! Napoleon defeated Austria literally dozens of times while in command of the Army in Italy, then again in 1800 at Marengo, then again in 1805, where he surrounded and forced the surrender of 35,000 Austrian troops at Ulm without fighting a single major battle! Then he defeated Austria four years later, smashing their armies to ruin at Wagram! As for Prussia, The vaunted army of Fredrick the Great was hopelessly outclassed by Napoleon's legions. After soundly defeating the Prussian Army at Jena, his cavalry pursued its demoralized remnants all across Europe, leading Napoleon's cavalry commander, Marshal Murat, to remark that, "The pursuit has ended for lack of enemies."

As for Spain, Napoleon soundly defeated every army sent against him personally while he was in Spain. It was his Marshals who faltered in their attempts to defeat Wellington. Spain was a country stuck in the middle ages. The Inquisition was still going on. It's wretched, superstitious population of peasants were afraid of the revolutionary ideas he was introducing, such as "property rights" and "freedom of religion."

The only reason that Napoleon was defeated was because of the intense, seething hatred that the British had towards him. Napoleon to them was the embodiment of all the republican, egalitarian values their class-conscious society so strongly abhorred. Britain's domination of the seas kept them safe from the direct fury of Napoleon's armies, leaving them free to bankroll the deployment of foreign armies to fight their hated enemy. British influencing of European governments to declare war on "The Corsican Tyrant" was responsible for countless deaths. Eventually, he was defeated by the combined armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Naples, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Bavaria, all of which were recieving money from Britain.

Napoleon almost won the Waterloo campaign. He managed to force the British and Prussian Armies apart at Ligny, and would have won at Waterloo had not the muddy terrain not postponed his assault until 11:00. If he been able to attack a few hours earlier, the Prussians would not have been able to enter the battle soon enought to affect the outcome, and Napoleon would have marched through the streets of Brussels that evening.

So, GOD, I think that we can both agree that you don't know what you're talking about. Your a$$ is mine.

Vive l'empereur!

 

[Hades]

It wasn't Napoleon's intention to conquer eurpoe (in the sense of ruling it). He was more into getting spectacular victories then sue for a one sided peace settlement. This kind of "strategy" would not because he got everything depended so much on his victories (that actually caused is downfall) and when he failed to do so, the cost was catastrophic.

So, to answer the orginial question. Napoleon did win, he just couldn't sustain his endless desire for further victories. He had to keep making wars and siging peace to stay in power so eventually the French grew tired of it and his troops couldn't substain the staggering losses.

 

[Ancient Grudge]

Napoleon could of won the Waterloo campaign if marshall Ney had sent infantry against the allied center early as for a while at Quatre Bras there were only Dutch-Belgian troops commanded by and extremly enept commader the Young forg ( william prince of orange) instead he waited long enough for the redcoats to arrive yet again his marshalls had let him down just like in spain also a whole corps of the french army spent the whole day marching between Quatre Bras and Lingy ( D'erlons) if this had been comitted to either of the two battles Napoleon's chances of winning would have greatly increased.

I thought that the Prussians hardly got involved in the fight till around 5-6pm and that they were held in check by the young guard and what was Grouchy doing if only he had marched to the sound of the guns!!!

 

[Magnus]

I think Napoleon had already won after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. After that he had secured the continent and his only remaining enemy was Britain, who could not effectively oppose the French on their own. Napoleon's problem was that he could never be satisfied with what he had, so he undermined the Treaty, decided to invade Russia, and lost everything.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Originally posted by Magnus
I think Napoleon had already won after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. After that he had secured the continent and his only remaining enemy was Britain, who could not effectively oppose the French on their own. Napoleon's problem was that he could never be satisfied with what he had, so he undermined the Treaty, decided to invade Russia, and lost everything.

Both Russia and France were hurt by the embargo. Russia, worse hit, had no choice but to resume trade with England. Napoleon hoped to use Russia's resources to solve the chrisis of his own country. The whole blockade idea was a mistake.

 

[Azale]

If Napoleon had won at Trafalgar, would he have tried a massive invasion of Britain? He had plans of invading underground,in balloons,boats,etc.


Napoleon started two wars (the major ones), that's why its called the Napoleonic Era. He won the first and lost the second.

 

[Hamlet]

Originally posted by Azale
If Napoleon had won at Trafalgar, would he have tried a massive invasion of Britain?

Almost undoubtedly.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

One question, albeit 1 year late. If Napoleon had won at Trafalgar and he would have attempted to invade Britain, would he have succeded?

 

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin
One question, albeit 1 year late. If Napoleon had won at Trafalgar and he would have attempted to invade Britain, would he have succeded?

According to the fact british military was mostly navy. I don't see how Napoleon could have failed to invade Britain once the seas secured. However, Napoleon had NO chance at all to secure the seas !

 

[stormbind]

That's like asking "What if Napoleon was a different person"?
(It would have required a different mind to win)

Maybe he would have won by never going to war?

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Originally posted by Marla_Singer
According to the fact british military was mostly navy. I don't see how Napoleon could have failed to invade Britain once the seas secured. However, Napoleon had NO chance at all to secure the seas !

But how good were "amphibious landings" back then?

 

[stormbind]

Not very, they would have needed to unload sacks of gunpowder and cannons etc, which is all very time consuming and exhausting considering it has to be hoisted over the sides of those big ships

They wouldn't just need a big navy, the navy would need to be many times greater than the defending one. Look at the Spanish armada; the Spanish generals said that even if they landed it would not be big enough to occupy the land.

 

[privatehudson]

He lost to Russia? 3/4 of the allied army at Austerlitz was Russian! The tsar Alexander I was actually in command at the battle, and was forced to flee ingloriously from the field, weeping like a child!

Uhmm only technically, Alexander in reality had precious little to do with the actual conduct of the battle, leaving it nominally in the hands of Kutuzov and in reality, planned by the likes of Weyrother.

Have you ever hear of the battle of Friedland, Mr. God???? Napoleon managed to successfully divert Russian reserves away from their center, then sent 10,000 cavalry crashing through their lines! After that he pretty much dictated the terms of peace to Alexander at their conference at Tilsit. He may have 'lost' to Russia five years later in 1812, but it was the Russian winter that defeated him, not the Russian Army.

More his own inability to follow his basic strategy and realise when to stop actually. Plus the Russians did inflict a number of severe checks on the Grand Army after Borodino that enabled the massacre that followed, so it's hardly correct to demean the Russian army in that form.

He managed to ONLY defeat Prussia and Austria??? Prussia and Austria were two of the major European powers!!!

Both of whom were either poorly lead or poor tactically when napoleon first crushed their forces making his work much easier.

then again in 1805, where he surrounded and forced the surrender of 35,000 Austrian troops at Ulm without fighting a single major battle!

Hardly suprising, Mack was a fool and a planning officer, not a battlefield general. He should never have been placed in such a position, any half competent Austrian like Charles would have fallen back slowly to protect the Danube crossings and vienna before joining with Kutuzov and company. Napoleon's campaign suceeded there to that extent because of Austrian incompetence, not just french brilliance.

Then he defeated Austria four years later, smashing their armies to ruin at Wagram!

After being kicked from here to next week at Aspern-Essling and only won Wagram after atrocious losses and awful tactics. No evidence of the genius of 1805 surfaces in the tactics of 1809's battlefields.

As for Spain, Napoleon soundly defeated every army sent against him personally while he was in Spain.

Well there's a shock, his armies were 2-3 times as large

It was his Marshals who faltered in their attempts to defeat Wellington.

And Napoleon who failed to grasp that he should either enter the scene and bring unity, or that he should simply withdraw. Napoleon doomed the peninsula campaign by his ignorance of the events and problems there, blaming the marshals, some of whom were quite brilliant is hardly the whole story.

It's wretched, superstitious population of peasants were afraid of the revolutionary ideas he was introducing, such as "property rights" and "freedom of religion."

So the massacres of spanish people in Madrid by Murat and elsewhere had nothing whatsoever to do with it hmm? Perhaps the fact that napoleon abused those ideas to place his own brother on the throne against spanish wishes was a factor?

The only reason that Napoleon was defeated was because of the intense, seething hatred that the British had towards him.

Yeah, that really influenced the actions of the whole of Europe. Just because we paid them (which was usually because we could not field the equivalent of their forces rather than to simply fight) does not mean they had their own grievances too...

Napoleon almost won the Waterloo campaign

Not after he completely screwed up in the aftermath of Ligny Even before that he was messing things up, not giving Ney sufficient warning for example, and leaving his finest officers behind him or rejecting them.

He managed to force the British and Prussian Armies apart at Ligny, and would have won at Waterloo had not the muddy terrain not postponed his assault until 11:00

The rain also slowed the Prussians though, so partly, what affected one, also affected the other to a similar extent. Plus I believe that Wellington was no fool, if he'd have known that the attack would begin so early I doubt he would have clung to the ridge but rather withdrew.

Napoleon could of won the Waterloo campaign if marshall Ney had sent infantry against the allied center early as for a while at Quatre Bras there were only Dutch-Belgian troops commanded by and extremly enept commader the Young forg ( william prince of orange)

Uhmm, a quick check shows that the same "extremely inept" commander was the one who ordered the crossroads to be held against Wellington's orders. Don't make the mistake of assuming that because he was inexperienced and made tactical errors, that this means he was utterly useless It's true Ney could possibly have taken the crossroads the evening before the engagement and probably should have. However Ney had been in command less than a few days and had been given a totally vague order and idea of what Napoleon's plan of campaign was. He'd also been forced to arrive for the campaign without any real command staff or preperation.

instead he waited long enough for the redcoats to arrive yet again his marshalls had let him down just like in spain

And like in Spain, the blame also rests in part with Napoleon

also a whole corps of the french army spent the whole day marching between Quatre Bras and Lingy ( D'erlons) if this had been comitted to either of the two battles Napoleon's chances of winning would have greatly increased.

Again, partly the fault of Napoleon who's order/campaign plan had been very vague as to whether D'Erlon and Reille would always be at the control of Ney. It both gave him command of the corps, and at the same time said Napoleon would remove the force if he needed them. Napoleon/Soult failed to inform Ney that D'Erlon's corps was needed and Ney assumed (rightly as it turned out) that his need was much greater.

If Napoleon had won at Trafalgar, would he have tried a massive invasion of Britain? He had plans of invading underground,in balloons,boats,etc.

Nope. When Trafalgar happened, the Grand army was mostly either in mid Germany or on the border. It was certainly not planning to invade after the naval engagement, Napoleon had abbandoned the idea to fight the Austro/Russians. He may have tried much later, but by then the British fleet could easily have been rebuilt It's similar, but even more obvious than the Battle of Britain. Trafalgar did not save the British from invasion, France/Napoleon had no more intention of invading. And Austria/Russia/Prussia would in effect tie down Napoleon for another two years

 

[Birdjaguar]

Waterloo debates can and have gone on for a long time, so I won't get into that one even though I do believe that small changes in the events could have changed the outcome. They didn't happen and we got what we got.

During the French retreat from Moscow probably as many Russians died of the cold as Frenchmen. Napoleon lost in Russia because, unlike the other European leaders, Tzar Alex did not settle for peace after Borodino or the capture of Moscow. The military and civilian intrstructures of the day precluded Napoleon ruling his empire from Russia and extending his campaign into the next year, so he left and the winter march destroyed his army. He built another in France for the campaigns of 1813-14 though it was of lesser quality and lacked the superior horse he lost in Russia.

Napoleon has been judged on many things and he was not a perfect person or Emperor, but from 1796 to 1807 he was the undisputed master of the European battlefield. Napoleon and his marshalls out planned, out maneuvered and out fought the armies set against them. Unfortunetly, they trained (through trial by combat) the generals that eventually beat them at Leipzig and and Waterloo.

He rewrote the book on warfare (much like Alexander and Hannibal in their day) for the next half a century. His campaigns are a study of how one makes "luck" through preparedness and seeing opportunity. Remember that hindsight is 20/20. We see the ineptitude of some of his oponents from from a perspective 200 years away. Austria and Prussia put their their best against him and their lack of ability does not cast any shadow on his brilliance as a leader and commander. His skills only seems obvious to us today because we take his knowledge for granted. Imagine how his enemies felt in 1805. Poor General Mack!!

He figured out for the first time many the military axioms we take for granted and that seem so obvious. And he applied the winning tactics of ancient leaders to the "modern' battlefield.

 

[privatehudson]

He rewrote the book on warfare (much like Alexander and Hannibal in their day) for the next half a century

Actually, a lot of what we attribute to him, such as the Corps system, the revolutionary army and others were instituted or thought of before his time. In the case of the corps system a royalist officer was suggesting this some 30 years prior to the napoleonic wars. He later called it "folly of his youth" I believe and recanted, but the text remained, the idea was merely first used by Napoleon rather than invented by him This tends to apply to most of the systems napoleon used. Mostly, what he did was neither his own ideas or even particularly that new, but he was the first to use such systems en masse and combine them with the power of a dictator and the freedom of action that entails.

Austria and Prussia put their their best against him and their lack of ability does not cast any shadow on his brilliance as a leader and commander.

Depends on the front and period. Austerlitz and it's campaign for example saw the allied army in the main theatre lead in reality by generals that were far below the standard of Napoleon, Charles or Wellington. Charles and Swarzenberg (the best Austrians IMO) are relatively late arrivals on the scene in terms of fighting Napoleon in any serious campaign. Charles inflicted a severe blow on Napoleon at Aspern-Essling before forcing Napoleon into a bloodbath at Wagram, Swarzenberg lead the coallition during the later part of the wars. So when the Austrians did field capable commanders, it's obvious that Napoleon's performances were not as brilliant as they were against Mack and the like. Many historians believe that the Austrian army under charles of 1809 would probably never have lost the 1805 campaign. For that reason, and the fact that I tend to judge the capacity of a commander on the quality of opponent they faced (amongst other things) I don't quite agree with the title "Brilliant".

What does also cast a shadow on Napoleon's "brilliance" is the often unimaginative and bloody battles of his latter campaigns. With the rare exceptions of some of 1813 and 1814 for example, his career from 1807 is a long list of battles either lost or won through weight of numbers alone. Napoleon wasn't the same general, his army was watered down by heavy losses in 1806 and 1807. Even so his battlefield tactics were caught severely lacking. The manouvers and sensible tactics he adopted and showed in italy and 1805 didn't seem to appear much later on. It's almost Jekyl and Hyde.

Also, at least one of his Marshals I would rate superior in ability to Napoleon, namely Davout. The choice to leave such a brilliant officer behind in 1815, whilst may have been needed, was ultimately a poor one. Davout, the man who really engaged the main prussian army in 1806 at Auerstadt was a brilliant subordinate and was highly reliable, unlike Napoleon who's form wavered. What fun it would have been to see Davout on the right during the 1815 campaign and Soult on the left. That would have probably made up for Napoleon's botched leadership during the fighting there and seen great sucess

The waterloo campaign, whilst initially planned well was a farce in terms of Napoleon's conduct in it from start to finish. The latter attempts of Napoleon's fanatical suporters to place blame on the marshals around him rather than accept that he simply screwed up is pretty annoying sometimes.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Originally posted by privatehudson


Actually, a lot of what we attribute to him, such as the Corps system, the revolutionary army and others were instituted or thought of before his time. In the case of the corps system a royalist officer was suggesting this some 30 years prior to the napoleonic wars...the idea was merely first used by Napoleon rather than invented by him This tends to apply to most of the systems napoleon used. Mostly, what he did was neither his own ideas or even particularly that new, but he was the first to use such systems en masse and combine them with the power of a dictator and the freedom of action that entails.

Most innovators and brilliant people use their own experience to build on the work of others. They either see the same data differently or use it in new ways, or use it effectively for the first time. In warfare, science, sports, etc. very few brilliant ideas spring "full grown from the head of Zeus". Alexander used his father's army to great effectiveness.

Napoleon raised the bar for judging army leaders. And certainly he declined (mostly) and his oponents (and their armies and army organization) got better after 1807. If they hadn't improved Europe would be different. Most geniues do their best work early.

" Many historians believe that the Austrian army under charles of 1809 would probably never have lost the 1805 campaign."

Or that Waterloo would have been different if Davout had been there. Davout wasn't there and Charles wasn't at Ulm in 1805. Charles did have four years to learn and prepare for 1809. I'm not sure where Gen Mack was in 1809, but I suspect that even he would have performed better in 1809.

Even tho the French army showed great grand tactical skill at Austerlitz, the campaign was won early on at the strategic level. Napoleon and his army were better prepared to handle the uncertainties of war and executed plans more successfully than their opponents. War is a very competitive business. You cannot afford to get too far behind.

A sports example: In the 1970s Dean Smith (coach of UNC basketball) built a new playing strategy, four corner offense, around a new young star Phil Ford. They beat the pants off almost everyone. The new strategy was so effective everyone tried it and those teams that could employ it effectively, won. Well, it was too effective and so the NCAA adopted the shot clock to shut down using that strategy. It did. Dean Smith found a new way to use five guys and basketball. It was brilliant because he used old tech in a new way for the first time.

And, Please don't force me to compare Dean Smith to Napoleon

 

[Birdjaguar]

Originally posted by privatehudson

I tend to judge the capacity of a commander on the quality of opponent they faced (amongst other things) I don't quite agree with the title "Brilliant".

Does this position raise or lower your view of Hannibal, Caesar and Alexander?

Were their opponents all really bad or did they just look that way in the in the "brilliant light of genius."

Napoleon is much closer to us than they are and he carries a lot of political baggage with him. In some circles it is anti British (hence anti American) to attribute anything positive to Napoleon. Imagine the 1796-1815 period without Napoleon or his like. How many people wax eloquent over or discuss the campaigns of 1792-1793? Valmy?

I would suggest that without Napoleon's genius, warfare in the period would have been lackluster and of little note and few if any generals would have a significant place in history. Imagine you were Docturov at Austerlitz or Hohenlohe at Jena? Or better yet Brunswick at Auerstadt. I suspect they were in awe of his skill as much as they hated him and feared his armies.