23.1.2: Napoleon’s Military Record

Early Military Career: The Revolution

Napoleon’s noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than available to a typical Corsican of the time.Upon graduating from the prestigious École Militaire (military academy) in Paris in 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment. He served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 and took nearly two years’ leave in Corsica (where he was born and spent his early years) and Paris during this period. At this time, he was a fervent Corsican nationalist. He spent the early years of the Revolution in Corsica, fighting in a complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He was a supporter of the republican Jacobin movement, organizing clubs in Corsica, and was given command over a battalion of volunteers. He was promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and leading a riot against a French army in Corsica.

Napoleon would witness the effects of Parisian mob violence against trained troops and became an exemplary officer in defense of revolutionary ideals. His firm beliefs would lead him to fight his own people, initially at the Siege of Toulon where he played a major role in crushing the royalist rebellion by expelling an English fleet and securing the valuable French harbor. Almost two years later, he faced an uprising in the heart of Paris, again utilizing his skills as a gunner. Promoted to general in 1795, Napoleon was sent to fight the Austro-Piedmontese armies in Northern Italy the following year. After defeating both armies, he became France’s most distinguished field commander.

French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars began from increasing political pressure on King Louis XVI of France to prove his loyalty to the country’s new direction. In the spring of 1792, France declared war on Prussia and Austria, who responded with a coordinated invasion of the country. By 1795, the French monarchy had failed and the French army had recorded both triumphs and failures, but the French had captured the Austrian Netherlands and knocked Spain and Prussia out of the war with the Peace of Basel. Hitherto unknown general Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796. In less than a year, French armies under Napoleon decimated the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching towards Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio, ending the First Coalition against the Republic.

The War of the Second Coalition began with the French invasion of Egypt, headed by Napoleon in 1798. The Allies took the opportunity presented by the French strategic effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. Napoleon’s forces annihilated a series of Egyptian and Ottoman armies at the battles of the Pyramids, Mount Tabor, and Abukir. These victories and the conquest of Egypt further enhanced Napoleon’s popularity back in France. He returned in the fall of 1799 to cheering throngs in the streets despite the Royal Navy’s critical triumph at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. This humiliating defeat further strengthened British control of the Mediterranean.

The Egyptian campaign ended in what some in France believed was a failure, with 15,000 French troops killed in action and 15,000 by disease. However, Napoleon’s reputation as a brilliant military commander remained intact and even rose higher despite his failures during the campaign. This was due to his expert propaganda designed to bolster the expeditionary force and improve its morale. That propaganda even spread back to France, where news of defeats such as at sea in Aboukir Bay and on land in Syria were suppressed.

Napoleon’s arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, with Napoleon installing himself as Consul. Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched a new assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of 1800. This latest effort culminated in a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, after which the Austrians withdrew from the peninsula once again. Another crushing French triumph at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. With Austria and Russia out of the war, the United Kingdom found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon’s government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars. The lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, however, and the Napoleonic Wars began a few years later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the series of Coalition Wars.

Napoleon as a Leader

The military career of Napoleon Bonaparte lasted more than 20 years. He is widely regarded as a military genius and one of the finest commanders in world history. He fought 60 battles and lost only seven, most of these at the end of his career.

In the field of military organization, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists and reforms of preceding French governments, developing much of what was already in place. He continued the policy that emerged from the Revolution of promotion based primarily on merit. Corps replaced divisions as the largest army units, mobile artillery was integrated into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry returned as an important formation in French military doctrine. These methods are now referred to as essential features of Napoleonic warfare.

Napoleon’s biggest influence was in the conduct of warfare. Antoine-Henri Jomini explained Napoleon’s methods in a widely used textbook that influenced all European and American armies. Influential military theorist Carl von Clausewitz regarded Napoleon as  a genius in the operational art of war and historians rank him as a great military commander. Under Napoleon, a new emphasis towards the destruction, not just outmaneuvering, of enemy armies emerged. Invasions of enemy territory occurred over broader fronts, which made wars costlier and more decisive. The political effect of war increased. Defeat for a European power meant more than the loss of isolated enclaves, intensifying the Revolutionary phenomenon of total war.

Attributions

• Napoleon’s Military Record
  • “French Directory.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Directory. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “French campaign in Egypt and Syria.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_campaign_in_Egypt_and_Syria. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Napoleon.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Napoleon_Bonaparte. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Siege of Toulon.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Toulon. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Coup of 18 Brumaire.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_of_18_Brumaire. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “French Revolutionary Wars.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Louis-François_Baron_Lejeune_001.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louis-Fran%C3%A7ois_Baron_Lejeune_001.jpg. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.