Napoleon on the Art of War [Paperback]

Thanks to Jay Luvaas we finally have a volume by Napoleon Bonaparte, which explains the organisation, deployment and uses of his military - his Grand Army - which dazzled Europe and the World in a way no other exponent of the military art has done.
This edition follows the acclaimed 'Frederick the Great on the Art of War' and displays originality in the way the editor shows how the modern U.S. military have adopted Napoleon's concept of army corps to create their own 21st century art of war.

When you read the words of Napoleon you learn that he was an enlightened and highly intelligent individual, who despite his ego, was immersed in the pursuit of attaining knowledge and thanks to this book, re-distributing what his years as a military commander had taught him. And he was not so vain as to believe he was the greatest, showing a willingness to learn from the campaigns of history and to apply them to his own adventures.
However, he was unique and this edition recognises that, leaving us with a well edited book as opposed to a rambling train of thought. And we would have expected no less from Mr. Luvaas who was the first Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army War College.
My recommendations for further reading are, by my own admission, fairly obvious. Firstly, 'In the Words of Napoleon' which was edited by R.M. Johnston. Then we have 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu. The new Denma Translation of that work is worth reading. And finally, 'On War' by Karl Von Clausewitz.

This book is a synthesis of the thoughts and writings of Napoleon, undoubtedly one of historys greatest military leaders.

Luvaas' book also portrays, and perhaps unintentionally, an almost manic and sometimes seemingly disjointed mind. I recently got the very enjoyable Napoleonic Wars in Cartoons, and, as jaundiced as the anti-Napoleonic propaganda of artists like Gillray undoubtedly was, Boney does come across, even in his own words, as an obsessively driven figure, and something of the arch-fantasist.

Even today, repercussions from the rearrangements of Europe and elsewhere that occurred during the Napoleonic wars continue to be felt. So insights into the charismatic man behind the carnival of carnage, writ large across the pages of history, are always interesting. On the strength of these writings, I'd argue that Bonaparte hardly comes over as an intellectual titan. Indeed, one wonders how such a mind achieved all that it did. Overall, these writings lend weight to Charles Esdaile's (and before him David Chandler's) characterisation of Napoleon as a man fraught with contradictions, blown around on the winds of his own unsettled mind.

It follows from this that it's rather worrying that such a man, with such a mind, the consequences of whose thoughts and actions cut short so terribly the lives of so many others, should be considered 'great', or described as a genius. In some respects he obviously was both great and a genius (he was, for most of his 'career', a great military leader, and he had a genius for organisation). But not necessarily in ways we should want anyone to emulate. Ultimately, in the cult of Napoleon, charisma and opportunism seem to be factors as integral to his success as genius or greatness. As with practically all such 'great captains', they rarely if ever possess sufficient wisdom to circumscribe their own ambitions, almost inevitably overreaching, and then bringing down vast swathes of humanity with them. Is that really the kind of greatness or genius we should admire?

I've not read any Sun Tzu, or very much Clausewitz, so I can't comment on their works, but, in terms of a clear disquisition on the 'art', or for that matter 'science', of war - a clear laying down of a cogent body of writing on the subject - this ain't it! Napoleon never did set down any such overview. There's much talk of various campaigns and actions, both Napoleon's own, including many orders/commands to various of his generals/aides, etc., and those of the 'great captains' of the past. But it all struck me as, rather like the 'fog of war', like so much smoke: sound and fury, signifying, if not nothing, then not a great deal. And, if one reads about his actual campaigns, especially those instrumental in his own downfall, namely Russia and the 'Spanish ulcer', you'll note that he doesn't actually always follow his own advice.

Famous for his interest in organisational detail, the chapter titled 'Combat Arms' quotes numerous discreet particles of Napoleon's correspondence - a feature of this book is that Luvaas has syncretised bodies of text from numerous non-contiguous writings - and some of this detail will be of particular interest to military buffs, wargamers and the like. For example: 'overall the numbers of cavalry in the French army will be 1/6th the strength of the infantry.' Pages 74-76 and onwards are good in this respect, covering interesting stuff on the proportions of different arms that go to make up an army, and the specific composition of various forces.

The method used to compose this book - over many years Luvaas read and translated a vast body of Napoleon's writings (but, at no point had Boney ever set down his military thinking systematically) - makes it rather fragmented and often somewhat repetitive. I reckon Luvaas has probably been very diligent in rendering faithful translations of Boney's words, but the result can at times be rather bitty and stodgy. Given that Napoleon's charisma must've been a very large part of his power, one wonders whether, in the French, his language was more powerful, and, if so, then, rather like translating poetry, more art and licence is needed in rendering a change of tongue. As represented here, Napoleon's thoughts and words seem to lose impact, when rendered too literally. Occasional typos don't help the flow of the rather leaden prose.

Whilst reading the book I speculated a little on whether or not there's perhaps something in Napoleon's writings common in the multitude of books published on the latest trends in business, with their heavy reliance on jargon, window-dressing supposedly innovative 'concepts', most of which turn out to be windy, overblown reiterations of commonplace thinking, dressed up as original thinking: so called 'Captains of Industry' parading in, aptly enough, the 'Emperors New Clothes'! Perhaps, in war as in business, leaders are often charismatic individuals, whose undefined 'auras' permit them to dominate other meeker souls, and whose own views and motivations, if examined closely, don't really stand up to the scrutiny, revealing themselves as banal and self-serving.

So, unlike the various theoreticians of war whose admiring 'Boney-phile' quotes pepper the book as chapter sub-headings, I find this book, whilst highly interesting, a rather depressing reflection on the nature of power politics, and particularly as that manifests in martial guise. In a nutshell, to dominate and conquer requires: charisma, the ability to bamboozle friend and foe alike, that you appear all-knowing, when in fact you're basically opportunistic, and a gift (if that's the right word: obsessional mania - i.e. being a 'control freak' - might do just as well) for organisation.

Ultimately, such characters, with their fragile but overbearing and overreaching tendencies, carry within them the seeds not only of their own undoing, but that of whole epochs. They seem destined to act out their personal neuroses on the world stage, where most of us would choose to do so on a cosier more domestic scale. Perhaps this is why Tolstoy says of Napoleon, in 'War and Peace', that, as he could not disavow his actions and their consequences, he had to disavow truth. So, in the end, these writings, to my mind, reflect the foggy mind of a fantasist, writ large, in gold leaf and blood.

Certainly an interesting and thought-provoking book, and for those interested in such things, an excellent addition to any Napoleonic library. But does it reveal the 'genius' of Napoleon? If it does, then, to my mind, it does so more in the old Roman sense of genius as personal spirit, and in the modern sense of the word as a driven and inspired individual, but emphatically not in the modern sense as it might be thought to refer to a wise or enlightened mind.

This book answered many of my questions. However, did not go into detail on his fait in Waterloo. Sometimes I think the Author spent too much time detailing the letters Napoleon wrote to the Kings and his officers but did manage to inplant in me how this man was so succesful at winning battles. Todays' Commander in Chief should read this book so he can make wise decisions in the future. Over all, it was very informative and I learned a little about the kind of person he was.