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Change of Tactics Wars with Napoleon’s armies brought with them destruction never before known to Europe. Shocked nations felt compelled by this experience and the conflicts that followed his death to bring a degree of civilisation to the carnage of the battle field. The Geneva Convention of 1864 was the first treaty to establish ground rules for modern types of warfare. It was signed by all European countries, the US and some Asian and South American states. It still acts as a guide, although new conditions have been added over time. These conditions prohibit the killing of civilians or anyone who has surrendered and ban the use of chemical weapons and expanding bullets that explode within the body. Prisoners of war must be treated humanely, and kept safe from violence, and there must be areas set aside from the fighting for treating the sick and injured. There are many other requirements and, while they may often be broken, they at least provide some sort of expectation of what is reasonable. But what exactly was it that Napoleon, his followers and enemies did that warranted this change? In the early 1790s, while France was torn by civil war and engaged in battle with most of Europe, Bonaparte was ordered to Toulon, on the southern coast. The city of 28,000 had rebelled against the Republic, leaving its port open to the English. Bonaparte argued, against his superior officer, that if his soldiers could seize the heights commanding the harbour, they could bombard the fleet, drive it away, and the city would fall. Bonaparte’s idea was accepted, 10 ships went up in flames, the British fled and Toulon was recaptured. It was an indication of his tactical genius and in just three months he rose from Captain to Brigadier General. This uncompromising approach struck a little closer to home on 5 October 1795 as crowds of Parisians stormed through the streets alongside national guardsmen threatening to destroy the Republic and restore the monarchy. When the government called on Bonaparte to repel the attack, he used all available weapons, including canons, killing some 100 people. This undermined his popular appeal but added to his credibility for being tough. Three weeks after crushing the rebellion, at the age of 26, he was made a full general, commander of the Army of the Interior. He continued to prove his tactical superiority when just six months later, and only days after his marriage to Josephine in 1796, he led a demoralised army of 38,000 French soldiers against the larger forces of 38,000 Austrians and their 25,000 Piedmontese allies emerging with a re-energised fighting force. His strategy was to isolate the Austrians from the Piedmontese, taking on each group separately and nullifying the advantage of greater numbers. The ingenious principle was always to try to have superior numbers at a given place. In two weeks, he won six battles, took thousands of prisoners, and broke the back of Piedmont army. He then pursued the retreating Austrians, bewildered by the 26-year-old general's new way of making war. Before Napoleon, opposing armies were commanded by nobles and the accepted code was that once they had each other in check there would be no fight. Napoleon pushed on with the attack, long after his enemies assumed that he was going to stop, maintaining a constant element of surprise. When the major confrontation with the Austrians came, at a bridge in Lodi, he placed himself at the front with the cannons to inspire his men by example. It worked, his brave image was secured with the devotion of his men.This bravado inevitably led to ill-advised and rash encounters and unprecedented bloodshed. A 1798 sortie into Egypt had seen his innovative thinking shine through to devastating effect. Napoleon organised his army into five gigantic squares during some battles to produce the effect of continual rolling fire. The French lost 30 men in one battle and their opposition five or six thousand. However he was left stranded with 35,000 soldiers in Egypt after his waiting fleet was attacked by Nelson. The victory was soured and after months of waiting for rescue, in 1799 Bonaparte abandoned his troops and secretly set sail for home. In the spring of 1800 his ruthlessness was again evident when he marched 40,000 men over the Alps to face the Austrians at Marengo, just 45 miles from Milan. There the cost of French victory was 6,000 casualties, with twice that number of Austrians killed or wounded. Not without justification did Napoleon call his soldiers La Grande Armée - The Great Army. He moved fast, often marching 30 miles each day, maintaining the element of surprise. His forces swept to victory again in 1805 in Austerlitz when 9,000 French were killed or wounded, along with 16,000 of the opposing Russians and Austrians. Within a few weeks he brought the Prussians to their knees, taking 140,000 prisoners, leaving 25,000 dead or wounded. Entering Poland, some 70,000 French and Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in just two battles. 'It is not combat any more,' a Russian general wrote the Tsar. 'It is butchery.' In 1808, Bonaparte sent 118,000 soldiers across the Pyrenees into a savage conflict in Spain. But in 1812 he was to be undone in Russia after ignoring the advice of his closest advisers. He assembled an unprecedented army of 600,000 men from every corner of his empire. Fierce opposition and the Russian summer and winter took their toll, and he was forced to retreat bringing back just 93,000 men. Other crushing defeats followed and the great military innovator had reached the end of his journey. |
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