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4.To the minister of war, Clarke,21 August 1809:“… that battles should not take place if one cannot estimate in his favor 70 chances for success out of 100,even that one may fight a battle only when one has no new chances to expect, since by its nature the outcome of a battle is always doubtful; but once the decision is made, one must conquer or perish.”
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5.To Prince Henry,8 March 1760.
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6.The passages in which Napoleon expresses himself in favor of keeping all his troops assembled before the battle are collected in an excellent study by Balck,“Napoleonic Preparation for Battle and Battle Leadership”(“Napoleonische Schlachtenanlage und Schlachtenleitung”),supplements to the Militär-Wochenblatt, Book 2,1901.
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7.Similarly in Oeuvres XXIX, pp.70,78,91,143.“Réflexions sur les projets de campagne,”1775.“Exposé sur le gouvernement prussien,”1776.“Réflexions sur les mesures à prendre au cas d’une guerre nouvelle avec les Autrichiens,”(“Reflections on the Measures to Be Taken in Case of a New War with the Austrians”),1779.
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8.For the details, the reader is referred to “Studies on the First Phase of the Campaign of 1796 in Italy”(“Studien zur ersten Phase des Feldzuges von 1796 in Italien”),by Erich Eckstorff, Berlin dissertation,1901,where the completely false accounts by Jomini and Count York are refuted and an error by Clausewitz is also corrected.
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9.The three quotations are from Kuhl, Bonaparte’s First Campaign,1796(Bonapartes erster Feldzug,1796),Berlin,1902,p.319.
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10.Letter to Field Marshal Lehwaldt of 16 April 1757.
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11.The French historians, for example, Martin and Thiers, find Napoleon’s judgment to be inspired by his own self-love, which was not willing to recognize anybody on a par with him. It may be that such a feeling had something to do with this somewhat disparaging expression. But that Moreau, in contrast to Bonaparte, was “methodical” is conceded even by his admirers, or if one wishes, it is pointed out by them; for example, in a study in the Parisian war archives(Dépôt de la guerre)of 1829. Quoted by Lort de Sérignan, p.212.
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12.Wiehr, Napoleon and Bernadotte in the Autumn Campaign of 1813(Napoleon und Bernadotte im Herbstfeldzug 1813),p.61.
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13.The comparison between the strategy of Moreau and that of Napoleon was correctly presented for the first time in the two dissertationsTheodor Eggerking,“Moreau as Commander in the Campaigns of 1796 and 1799”(“Moreau als Feldherr in den Feldzügen 1796 und 1799”),Berlin,1914;and Siegfried Mette,“Napoleon and Moreau in Their Plans for the Campaign of 1800”(“Napoleon und Moreau in ihren Plänen für den Feldzug von 1800”),Berlin, R. Trenkel,1915. Alfred Herrmann’s work, Marengo, Münster,1903,is interesting but at times overcritical, and it often sees errors in Napoleon’s conduct of war precisely in those places where his greatness actually lies. See in this connection the review by E. Daniels, Preussische Jahrbücher,116:347. The correct concept of the campaign, based most appropriately on the sources, is to be found in the work by Major De Cugnac, La campagne de Marengo, Paris,1904. Review by von Caemmerer, Militärische Literaturzeitschrift 2(1905):86.
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We learn about Moreau in 1813 from his conversation with Bernadotte in the Collection of the Orders of Charles John, Royal Prince of Sweden(Recueil des ordres de Charles Jean, Prince royal de Suède),Stockholm,1838,p.11. He did not exercise a noticeable influence.
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14.Even in the book Napoléon et les grands généraux de la révolution et de l’empire, by Lort de Sérignan, Paris,1914,despite the generally correct orientation, the really important aspect of the problem is still not yet grasped. The author considers only Davout as a complete disciple of Napoleon. He considers Lecourbe, Desaix, and St. Cyr as disciples of Moreau. The frequently expressed statement, which is also accepted by Sérignan, that Napoleon formed no disciples but only tools, I would like to reject expressly.
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15.These passages are from the Basic Principles of Strategy(Grundsätze der Strategie),1813.
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16.The theories and writings of the archduke are treated excellently by Heinrich Ommen in The Conduct of War of Archduke Charles(Die Kriegführung des Erzherzogs Karl),Berlin, E.Ebering,1900. The army organization, tactics, rations system, and so on, are also treated very clearly in this work. In his discussion of strategy, however, Ommen makes a mistake. He understands the old strategy too much as a simple strategy of maneuver, which it became only in those cases where it stiffened, and he therefore brings the archduke into an opposition to that strategy, an opposition which did not actually exist(p.13). See W. Kraus,“Die Strategie des Erzherzogs Karl 1796,”Berlin dissertation,1913.
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17.Rühle von Lilienstern, Report of an Eyewitness of the Campaign of Prince Hohenlohe(Bericht eines Augenzeugen vom Feldzug des Fürsten Hohenlohe),1807,1:63.
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18.See my article “Erzherzog Carl” in the Recollections(Erinnerungen),p.590. See also in this connection Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften,27:380,where older theoreticians are cited, whose teachings were adopted by the archduke.
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19.August Menge, The Battle of Aspern(Die Schlacht bei Aspern),Berlin, Georg Stilke,1900. Holtzheimer,“Schlacht bei Wagram,”Berlin dissertation,1904. In his book Napoleon as Commander,2:247,Count York compared Napoleon with Frederick and Archduke Charles in the following manner:
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If the Napoleonic strategy possessed a grandeur in its plans and a boldness in its execution that I, at least, cannot recognize to the same degree in Frederick or Archduke Charles, on the other hand the behavior of the latter two does not show the decline from the earlier summit; they remained true to their own conduct, even if this never reached the full military greatness of the Napoleonic.
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This kind of comparison must be rejected in every respect. Neither did Napoleon decline from his summit, nor may the archduke be compared with Frederick in this way, nor may the difference in their epochs be ignored in the comparison between Napoleon and Frederick, nor may the change in Frederick himself be left out of consideration. If one claimed to measure strategists only by the “grandeur of their plans and the boldness in their execution,” then of course it would be precisely Frederick who “declined from his summit.”
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20.In conjunction with this battle, Napoleon once developed for an Austrian officer the difference between his conduct of battle and that of the Austrians(quoted, for example, in Knesebecks Trilogie, and in Ranke, in “Hardenberg,”Werke,48:125). Ranke finds that it is a generalized description of the second day of Wagram. The passage here reads as follows:
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You normally move forward in small corps that are brought together as a whole by your battle plan; you make your dispositions on the day before the battle, when you do not yet know the enemy’s maneuver. In doing so, you can only take into account the terrain. I do not deploy before the battle; during the night before the battle I keep my troops carefully assembled. At the first rays of the sun, I reconnoiter the enemy. As soon as I am informed about his movements, I make my dispositions, but they are based more on the enemy than on the terrain.
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I cannot find that in this point Napoleon hit precisely on the difference between the French and the Austrians. It is rather the difference between the offensive battle and the defensive that he portrays. For that reason it is applicable to the battle of Wagram. At Austerlitz, however, Napoleon, too, made his battle plan on the preceding day and deployed his troops in conformance with the terrain. If there was on the other side no commander who waited until the morning of the battle to order the approach march and the attack, but instead the general staff provided for a detailed disposition, that still does not mean that the important and decisive difference of the opposing arrangements is to be found precisely in this point.
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21.On 11 October 1805 Napoleon had Berthier write to Marmont as follows:
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In all the letters that General Marmont writes me, he speaks to me about rations. I repeat to him that in the wars of movement and invasion that the emperor is waging there are no depots; it is the business of the commanding generals of the corps to provide for themselves the means of feeding the troops in the areas through which they march.
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On 8 July 1812 word was sent to Poniatowski that His Majesty was very dissatisfied to see that he spoke of pay and bread when it was a question of pursuing the enemy.
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