waterloo

[English assassin]

To be fair to Ney he was a Cavalry commander put in charge of a whole army corps. I've read that he was so carried away with his cavalry charge that he forgot that his infantry would not move up behind unless he ordered it.

With the result that the British infantry were forced into square, with the gunners inside, but no one came up behind the French cavalry to capture the British guns, turn them on the British squares, or engage the squares with musket fire. Had they done so...well, as the Iron Duke himself said, it was a close run thing.

[Watchman]

Well, in his defense massed French cavalry had proven itself capable of demolishing - or rather rampaging through - formed infantry squares in the past - but then again that was the army *before* the ill-fated Russian sightseeing tour. Maybe he just wasn't quite up to date (or refused to acknowledge) about the capabilities of the troops he had at his disposal at the time ?

[VAE VICTUS]

i dont know much about napoleon, so ill ask this Q.
was he a good general by himself or did his field marshalls hold him up?

[Incongruous]

What is a general without soldiers? A loon
What is a general without staff? A madman
Was Napoleon incapable of commanding without his officer? Of course he was, just like any other commander.
But to say that he left it to all his divisionals and Marshals is insane, he was a great general. Unfortunatley what had swept Europe a few years before was no longer intuative and new, it had been proven in spain that French coloumns fell before British bayonets and volleys, he was no longer the great commander he was. Yet still capable of brilliance, he could have won at Waterloo if he had sent the Guard in earlier or at leats thats what I think.

[matteus the inbred]

some of the Marshals (Lannes, Davout, Massena, arguably Suchet) were almost as talented as Napoleon, but none of these were available at Waterloo. some of the Marshals were simply not up to the job, and had gotten lucky, but then war is largely luck anyway, and Napoleon always recognised this. he might have been facing generals who knew how to fight him, but Blucher still left all his men at Ligny positioned on the forward slope, thus exposing them to French artillery and got badly beaten for his troubles. Wellington was the exception rather than the rule.

Bopa the Magyar, i suspect if Napoleon had sent the Guard up earlier they'd have got shot down earlier, but who knows! the Guard were usually a last resort, and he was also using elements of them to keep the Prussians off his right flank. had he attempted to outflank the Allied force and push it from its position, he'd have won.

[Grey_Fox]

had he attempted to outflank the Allied force and push it from its position, he'd have won.

Not necessarily. Napoleon couldn't have outflanked the British Left at Mont St. Jean because that would have put his army between the Prussians and the British. He couldn't have outflanked the British right because the only way to do so was guarded by 17,000 prime troops at Nivelles (I believe that is the name of the crossroads). Wellington (and the whole of the British army for that matter) expected something cleverer than he got on the 18th of June.

What Napoleon should have done was concentrate on beating the British army at Quatre Bras. This would have forced the British to fall back on their lines of communication to the coast. Then and only then should he have attacked the Prussians.

By attacking the Prussians first Napoleon allowed the British to fall back on their own accord, and by giving the Prussians a 12-hour head start before sending Grouchy he allowed the British and Prussians armies to meet up.

Then there is the whole farce of D'Erlon's corps during the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras, which spent the entire day marching from Napoleon to Ney and back again without fighting in either battle.

[matteus the inbred]

bang on the money Grey Fox, i'd forgotten about the troops at Nivelles (or Hal?)

although i think it was D'Erlon's corps that got an impromptu route march instead of a battle. Davout was back in Paris running the Ministry of War...and i doubt such a competent soldier as Davout would have allowed himself to be shuttled between two critical battlefields like that!
maybe Napoleon should have kept Grouchy's force closer at hand on the right, and used it to counter the Prussian advance? still, in sending it to tail the retreating Prussians he was only following standard practice, unfortunately he sent it the wrong way. Grouchy did engage the Prussian rearguard at Wavre, and then extricated his force very skillfully, but it was too late to salvage his reputation.