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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Hello! I'm an American on a quest to learn more about history, geography and the universe in general. In this video I learn more about Napoleon's next big battle at Austerlitz. He takes on the Austrian and Russian empires just outside the city, and soundly defeats them using innovative strategies and his shrewd military intuition. Also, I learn how Napoleon created the corps unit, which surprised me. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe!
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#france #napoleon #napoleonic wars #russia #american #reaction #austria
Sorry I had to drop this one later than planned - technical difficulties. Look forward to seeing all of you in the comments! Make sure to like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video 👍🏻 Twitter and Instagram links are in the description if you want to follow me there.
So you know, I've left several comments, each covering a different topic, for simplicity. TH-cam makes a single comment awkward to manage, since it sometimes deletes them at random.
I hope that's all right.
That’s alright... me up watching this at 4 am in ye oldie England 🇬🇧🏴🏴🏴
I hope you go right to the end of the napoleonic wars.
Waterloo. Wellingtons masterpiece and the end of boney.
I see you don’t know much about Prussia. React to a short video called “Ten Minute History Frederick The Great and the Rise of Prussia- by History Matters”, before watching the next video of Napoleon Smashes Prussia.
If you do watch some of the Sharpe series then you will be introduced to the new invention of the time. The rifle.
Both sides in the napoleonic wars used mainly smoothbore muskets which had poor accuracy and shorter shot range but then the British invented the rifle which refers to the rifling of the inside of the barrel otherwise known as lans and grooves. This gave the the shot a twist in flight which made it much more highly accurate and a longer range. Rifles are just the same today.
In my experience, this series has a bit of an "armchair general" effect on the viewer, making it easy to spot tactical mistakes thanks to the birds-eye view and, with the benefit of hindsight, making one think "I could have done better". Its a common side-effect I see a lot with these map-type videos.
Needless to say, commanders did not have an overview this convenient, nor the benefit of hindsight. Mountains, forests and weather can easily obstruct your view and make it difficult to make out whats even happening and who is winning. Furthermore, radios didn't exist, so commands had to be carried by messengers and could be intercepted.
Its easy to point out Kutuzovs mistake of falling for Napoleons bait, but put yourself in his shoes for a minute: You don't know exact troop numbers, only rough estimates. Both Emperors Alexander and Francis are pressuring you to go on the offensive, as Napoleon is holding Vienna. And once you reach the French army, a heavy mist hinders your reconnaissance (a word which literally means "recognize" in french and starts being used in a military context around 1810).
Good thoughts to keep in mind, thanks.
@Weebo DX That's not really supported by the facts, as in 1813 the Coalition's entire strategy was to refuse battle if Napoleon was on the field and attack if only his marshals were present. Some of his marshals were excellent officers, Davout and Lannes for two, but I think those that fought against Napoleon had him pegged correctly.
Without a map, we can't really know what's happening ourselves. Its already over, so there's no harm. That's the point, anyway: Letting us see it from angles they couldn't also lets us know how and why they could only see what they did
@Weebo DX How do you think that much of lieutenant and general been that good under one army ?
You're so right
Unprecedented? I think "up to that time" is implicit
Yes, obviously WW2 was worse than the napoleonic wars. and ww2 happened later.
But I think the conquests of Djinghis Khan were much worse, casualty-wise, than the napoleonic wars. The fact that some people on the asian and russian steppes died makes it so that european history reviews neglect them somewhat...
@@tomtom34b The Napoleonic wars were not unprecedented in destruction; as you rightly point out the Mongol conquest was much more brutal and destructive. But I think it was more unprecedented in the scale of resources and mobilization up until that point; the fact that France, and later most other European powers were able to reliably conscript man and mobilize resources on a national level for such a gigantic war effort is what made the war unprecedented.
@Satvik Gupta oh, I didn´t know that.
Napoleon was a opportunist or as.people in china would say capitalist
A lot of things might look obvious from a map, but you need to put yourself in the shoes of the people there. They didn't have a huge map telling them what was where, the only thing they could rely on was their intelligence and judgment.
7:56 unprecedented means "never done or known before", so unprecedented in history means nothing that has happened before that point is comparable.
1.)Usually in these Doc's when they say "Unprecedented in History", they are referring to all the history leading up to the event in question. Yes WW2 was significantly worse than the Napoleonic Wars. For us the devastation and death in WW2 is unprecedented in History.
2.) "Was Britain wanting to restore peace in Europe?" No. Britain was getting nervous at French resurgence and didn't want it to become a colonial rival like it was a hundred years earlier. Keep in mind the Victors write history, yet there's a reason people all over the world still revere Napoleon Bonaparte.
3.)For the Corps system, the main way we use it today in modern warfare is the echoed in how we operate on a Division level. The "Marine Corps" is it's own army, divided into many divisions that can fight and sustain themselves independently.
UK wanted both to restore the peace and calm down France. And yes, Napoleon was bad guy
"victors write history" no, everyone around the world writes history, it isnt just the victors
@@arty5876 Even if Napoleon's flaws were doubled, he would be a Saint compared to the rest of Europe. Vive Napoléon, vive l’Empereur
@@shaafalikhan3704 he killed more people than Stalin in percentage comparision to World population, and also a lot of people suffered.
@@arty5876 That wasn't Napoleon's fault. All the crowns of Europe declared war on France. The only war that he began was the Russian invasion and even that was because the Russians kept harassing the Grand Duchy of Poland and opened their ports to the British (a clear violation of the continental system).
Regarding your comment about British strength. The British Navy, had traditionally been its most powerful military asset instead of its army, as unlike the powers on the continent, such as France, Great Britain was not threatened by land invasions, this combined with its overall lower population than France, who at this point in history had something like 25-30 million people to Great Britain’s 10-15, meant that Britain did not need to spend the majority of its military budget on a large army, but could get away with a smaller one.
The coastal nature of most of Britain produced a lot of sailors, and meant that the British could spend most of their military budget on building a large, strong and very well trained navy to control the oceans, aided in their reach by their empire across the globe, which could not have been built without the navy.
In this period controlling the oceans meant you could starve your enemy of trade and resources, destroying their economy, potentially starving them and in general devastating their ability to wage war.
The British navy started to gain traction in the 1500s under King Henry VIII, but by the war of the Spanish succession in the first decade of the 1700s, had overtaken the Dutch navy in size and power, and in the 7 years war of 1756-1763 won almost all naval engagements against the french navy, and blockaded France, which was one reason their economy tanked in the lead up to the American revolution, and then their own.
I would add that Alfred the Great could be connected to this, as he was the first English King to try and establish a British navy. King Cnut also had a maritime empire. In some intervening periods, I think the navy was less dominant because Britain was mostly internally focused, with their biggest external ambition being France, which is literally swimming distance away. There was also significant naval activity in the 14th century, enough that Jeanne de Clisson became an infamous British privateer, avenging her husband whom the French killed.
All you need to do is look at military terms. Most army terms are French words, grenadier, bayonette, lieutenant etc, cos British armies did not count for much
@@laurabailey479 that’s not really true, the British army was by no means a poorly trained or bad one, and they enjoyed great success against the french under Marlborough in the Spanish succession war for example, despite being outnumbered.
@@laurabailey479 That's weird given that Wellingtons Anglo-Portugese army was by a country mile the most successful Coalition army in the entire Napoleonic wars...
For pretty much all of history Britain has relied on small but well trained army. Whether its the housecals of the Anglo-Saxons, the longbowmen of the hundreds year war, the redshirts of the empire or our modem 80,000 strong army. (for comparison the modern French army is 200,000 strong)
i haven't seen anyone else mention this point so i will bring it up. the idea behind the Crops was not a new one, the roman legion system was very similar, and after the fall of the roman empire many tried to imitate it (mostly for the crusades) but the logistical and supply problems it created was never really solved until napoleon's reforms. and still define the limits that these tactics can be used even today. the economics and logistics of war are usually the most underrated elements but has often been the biggest limiting factor that determined a generals options.
Sympathy for Horses: You weren't the only one. In the battle of the golden spurs, the French commander Robert III Count of Artois was caught by the Flemish. He pleaded with them to spare his horse. They did not... nor did they do him the favour. That guy was something of an animal lover, of course. He had his own menagerie, and even mechanical monkeys.
Also, in tournaments, you could get banned if you injured or targeted the opponent's horse. Horses were expensive, good warhorses radically so, so they were well taken care of. Practicality aside, people tend to like horses, considering them noble animals (not so noble when the dumb pony is stepping on your hand).
If you're interested in horses and knights, you should check out Modern History TV, which has a lot of material on that subject, where Jason keeps horses. There's also Thilo M, a great but dead channel where he demonstrated various aspects of mounted archery and mounted martial arts, like making sure to not hit your horse when using a two handed weapon from the saddle.
Good to know I'm not the only one! lol
The British introduced the Dickin Medal for animals in 1943, it’s essentially the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor for animals
@@vaudevillian7 thats a bit late given that animals were on their way our of military matters...
@@Nonsense010688 To be fair, they didn't start giving humans medals until about 1916.
@@vanivanov9571 Didn't "medals" exist before WW1?
Or do you mean in metal form? Or to common soldiers? Or is it a British thing that they didn't have them?
Pretty sure that in "rorke's drift" the people got alot of Victorian crosses.
10:00 "Balance of power" is a European diplomatic idea that in order to prevent great wars and one power to dominate all others, the great powers should be in a "balance" (insert "as all things should be" meme).
In practice it meant that if one power gain power somewhere it meant that the other powers would demand compensations one way or the other or face an alliance against it.
An example of this you can see in the "Partitions of Poland", in 1772, 1793 and 1795 (one could add 1939 to this, but that's another story). Here Austria, Prussia and Russia basically all wanted more land/power and decided together to split Poland among them, so they would keep the balance.
Napoleons dominance would soon overturn this balance completely to a point that, at least for a while, he was the "master of europe". And the British were sacred that if France would rule Europe that over a short or an long time, they would too fall under France rule.
After (Spoilers ;) ) Napoleon the "balance of powers" principle was revived, but suffered a shock when German was united in 1871 and ended in Desaster in 1914...
The "corps" army system already existed during the time of Rome. Every legion was able to fight, move or build things like roads or forts independantly, they had engineers & co not only soldiers and that explains as well how strong were roman legions at their time. However as all romans things it has been forgotten during the middle age
I was looking for someone to say this.
Yeah, I figured someone would have done it before Napoleon. It just didn't make sense to me otherwise. That's so fascinating to me though that these things were forgotten after the decline of the Romans. I guess the Middle Ages were like that for a lot of things. A shame.
The british did not have mass subscription, it was a voluntry force drawn from the lowest classes of Britain. "Since army life was known to be harsh, and the remuneration low, it attracted mainly those for whom civilian life was worse".
The British army has always been well trained and equpiped but also rather small, hence why Britain could not challenge france on land alone. One reason for Britain having a small army is because they had a professional army where as most nations relied on conscription with limited professional soldiers, where as Britain very rarely conscripted soldiers.
Nope, the French and the Prussian armies were well trained than the Brits.
@@jasonjason6525 The British army being well trained doesn't wean the others weren't
@DANIEL BIN OMAR - I'd imagine so, the large distance between Britain and the 13 colonies made transporting troops a nightmare. Especially as Britain was also at war with other nations such as France and needed their armies sent elsewhere.
We never really needed a big standing land force, being an island ,not landlocked with so many borders to defend. The navy was Britain's priority, protecting trade and our coast. As the empire grew then obviously it became more of a necessity to increase the army, and induct native peoples into the ranks.
Napoleon as far as I'm concerned was probably the greatest Frenchman that ever lived, although our enemy ,he proved without doubt an extremely worthy opponent, a total maverick ,unpredictable. It took two similar mavericks to stop him, Nelson and Wellington.
@DANIEL BIN OMAR - The brits strongly believed they could stop the unrest. However when more and more joined the revolutionary army, the brits ran into a problem, since they had their troops stationed all over the world.
Many of the UK peasants were having a rough time, since UK was still broke, the reasons for the revolution in the first, so they barely no insentive to travel across the ocean and fight in the new world.
They were not overly motivated to fight OTHER ENGLISHMEN either.
When the French joined in, the brits were shocked, and could not move trained troops over there fast enough.
"Unprecedented" means "nothing like that had been there before". As WW2 was just a bit _after_ Napoleon, people at that time didn't take it into account, no. ;)
Aaahhh... Finally! Someone dedicated to history :D
Fun fact. When allied commanders talk about battle plans, Kutuzov was refusing emperors'tactic. He was ignored and scolded by Alexander. So he pretended to sleep during plan making to avoid scolds that would come at him. Kutuzov was the one bringing his division to Pratzen Heights wihtout the orders of emperor. It seems like only Napoleon and Kutuzov were understood Pratzen Heights was key to victory. Kutuzov was raising "Danger! Help needed!" Flag on Pratzen Heights repeatedly asking reinforcements while desperately defending heights. When Alexander realised how important was heights and commited his guards to heights, it was too late. After this battle Alexander understood one thing. He should leave this military things to his battle tested commanders. He never overruled Kutuzov's decisions later and we know what happens.
With regard to what you said about Rhine, don't forget that European borders aren't just arbitrary lines on a map, they're places you can stop an invading army.
And the problem with an army "living off the land" is it involves terrorising the locals and leaves you horribly vulnerable to an enemy ruthless enough to burn everything as they retreat. As Napoleon himself would later discover in Russia. Pitched battles with both armies meeting in the field were actually pretty uncommon in history prior to modern logistics, and you were mostly travelling with siege equipment.
Yep, The only advantage to Napoleon's scattered army system was speed. It was vulnerable to communication failures, corps isolated and attacked, and scorched earth or barren terrain
medieval and earilier battles were (usually) decided in a matter of hours. now if you applied the corps system then, then the dispersed army could not simply arrive in time for battle, also all the other corps would need to be informed first which would take additional time. and a single corps could probably not even hold out for hours.
i imagine there are roughly two major reasons why it works for napoleon.
1. his army was bigger single force than anything that came before (i think.)
2. he had some good generals/marshals on his side who would often make the right decisions on their own.
those might not be all the reasons, but its what comes to mind at the given moment.
In regards to the introduction of the Corps system, armies before then, with exception of the British, were conscripted and relied on discipline and coercion to convince their troops to fight. Thus it was necessary to keep armies close together to prevent mass desertion. The French Revolution introduced the concept of the citizen soldier, a soldier who was motivated to fight by his own will and his loyalty to his country or a cause like the Revolution. Napoleon brilliantly used the citizen soldier concept to completely revolutionise warfare
To go further back in time Howitzers are actually from the early 15th century. Their purpose was specifically anti-personnell at that time(a lot of guns were against fortifications) - it comes from Czech+German language.
Houfnice = Houf(German for heap, or group of people - a crowd, also means "courtyard") + itze (a suffix indicating "of") so it basically means with slight alteration: "Weapon against crowds" or "For the purpose of crowds".... a "Crowderer" lol
Monsieur Rogier* sporting a bicorne.
Before Napoleon the highest military battle formation was a 'Division', something you would have heard like in this video. While throughout history armies have indeed split off their forces in order to capture multiple areas and counter their enemies etc. Napoleon's campaigns saw this method expand beyond those of previous wars. The fronts became wider and the 'Corps' replaced the Division as the highest operational formation due to its effective use by Napoleon's army.
For pointers; Battalions make up Brigades/Regiments, Brigades make up Divisions and Divisions now made up the Corps.
Napoleon essentially made war 'bigger' as Revolutionary France had already expanded conscription increasing the size of its armies (which the Corps system made better organization of).
The other European Powers also followed by increasing conscription too in order to match France but they could not counter Napoleon's use of the Corps which made his army more maneuverable and manageable and so you see why this was important, everyone saw the merit in it and came to replicate it.
It became the new model of how an army should be organized.
Regarding Corps level army organization : the roman legions were basically corps-like. They were able to function independently, or to join other legions to create a bigger army. The ability to separate and concentrate was key to the late imperial army, which relied in deep defense tactics to weaken, outmaneuver and overcome more mobile foes. It was also used by Viking raiders, albeit not as deliberately as the roman tribunes or French XIXth century high ranking officers: small raiding parties would roam the countryside, and gang up to form an army in case of a major threat to overcome.
However, the corps has an edge over past incarnations of its core idea (dividing the army in sub-groups): it is adapted to bring flexibility to the army/divisions structure, and as such is integrated in the strategic thought to unprecedented levels, and can operate against full size armies.
The reason the corps system only appeared then was plainly that over the 18th century army sizes grew and grew until the Revolutionary Wars where France essentially established a draft system to mobilize a mass army in the hundreds of thousands. So before that you had armies usually were a lot smaller, a nation usually only has one or two anyway and command and control was centralized because monarchies.
Also there are things like infrastructure to consider. In the centuries before there would not have been as many good roads and supply via central lines was difficult as it was. While armies could forage on the land, gun powder armies need gunpowder which usually needed to come from central arsenals. In fact French logistics under Napoleon reached a peak in how well that worked. Even designed particular wheels for the transport wagons capable to deal with bad roads to keep up with the armies. In equal terms they established the semaphore system as a cross country spanning communication network before telegrams were a thing.
All that meant that within Central Europe Revolutionary France had the most advanced army, logistics and communication of all Great Powers.It also helped that France was a meritocratic dictatorship, all other European powers were monarchies and usually nepotistic dictatorships aka their officers were aristocrats that bought their privileges, not earn them.
Which is why Britain and Russia only were successful on the periphery. where there were no good roads, the communication was disrupted and supply lines beyond the reach of the French core regions.
You also needed to be able to trust those generals to not use their armies to turn against you.
I really do think epic history is a great tool,the guy that narrates speaks very clearly and with an interesting tone and voice that helps capture the historic importance and interest of the clips....good reaction objects...I hope you SoGal can do more of them...:)
I'm planning to do the entire Napoleon series, and probably more videos from the same channel down the road.
I've read the Andrew Roberts book. It's very good.
Only if you are a Bonapartist. Roberts just writes books that he thinks will sell.
@@davidhollins870 Well I think it's good and I'm not a Bonapartist so I guess that proves you're wrong. I'm not sure what the problem is with writing books that sell well either.
@@patavinity1262 Then I suggest you read a few decent biographies of Napoleon, instead of hagiography. Nothing wrong with writing what sells - doesn’t make it accurate. Roberts is a just a rent-a-quote author sucking up to some group to sell his books. The fact that you “think it is good” demonstrates nothing beyond your own lack of knowledge and wish to read what you want to read.
@@davidhollins870 "Then I suggest you read a few decent biographies of Napoleon, instead of hagiography."
I've read several biographies, as well as several other historical works which treat with the era, so I have no need of your recomendation, thanks. Your description of it as 'hagiography' is ludicrously inaccurate, since while the author is an admirer of Napoleon, he is scrupulous in describing his faults.
"Nothing wrong with writing what sells - doesn’t make it accurate."
I don't believe I ever said that books must be accurate if they sell well. If you're attempting to criticize this particular book as inaccurate, then it would be sensible to say why you think so.
"Roberts is a just a rent-a-quote author sucking up to some group to sell his books."
I have no idea what this sentence means. Try again.
"The fact that you “think it is good” demonstrates nothing beyond your own lack of knowledge..."
I'm very amused to wonder what the real source of all this petulant rage is.
How precisely does the fact that I think it's good demonstrate my lack of knowledge?
"... and wish to read what you want to read."
How does precisely does one wish to read what one doesn't want to read? Do you spend a lot of time reading what you don't want to read? Sounds rather miserable.
@@patavinity1262 No, you just lack the capacity for critical thought. All Roberts did was to tell a familiar hagiographic version of Napoleon’s life while scattering bits of Correspondence from the new Fondation Napoleon collection. He does no original research or original thought. He just writes what he thinks a decent sized audience would like and there are plenty of N fans out there.
The effect is that it is hard to get new research published and worth even less to do it financially.
Napoleon implemented a similar strategy at Waterloo, tried to force Wellington to weaken his centre and commit more troops to the flanks, Wellington refused, instead Napoleon was forced into a meat grinder with tens of thousands of french soldiers attacking well defended farm houses. Wellington was not as stupid as the Allied commanders at Austerlitz. He knew not to divide his strength. The way to defeat Napoleon was to get him to fight on your terms.
Wellington was a lot smarter than the opponents napoelon faced in 1805, but napoleons army was a lot more formidable in 1805, in 1815 it was mostly conscripts.
@@fredbarker9201 Actually Napoleons army at waterloo was more experienced than Wellingtons.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- yes and no. Certainly in the sixth coalition it was nearly all conscripts. So they are not exactly hardened veterans fighting again 1-2 years later. But I get your point, plus Wellington had to deal with a language barrier issue. But being totally honest how would Waterloo have spanned out without Prussia
Well well, Wellington has been defeated in waterloo. This battle has bee won by The prussian’s army commanded by Blücher.
@@Sperenza2b *Laughs in Veteran Imperial guards getting cut down by the 52nd Light Infantry*
You are awesome. It's great to see people who purposely seek out knowledge and understanding. Thank you.
The core system was impossible prior to the modern era and the fire arms.
The population of most countries was not that big, and migration was slowed down because of hundreds of years of religious wars.
During the Napolionic era, the population of each country grew rapidly, and the armies were big.
Another big thing also came in, and that was the fire-arms.
The fire-arms makes it possible to split your army in different groups (cores) and support another army from afar, without the fear that an enemy army will just go around you.
Back in the middle ages, horse cavalry was used to support armies from the flanks, and were called horse "units" or just cavalry, that were used as cores.
At the time, it was very difficult to move around hundreds of men and expect them to go into a hand to hand combat and pull back and regroup. So all you need was a single quick blow into the other army that will hopefully knock them out.
The core system was impossible, due to the fact that if your opponent comes with a thousand men strong army, and you've split your army in 3 groups of 1000/3, you will face a large group of men at once.
Your group of 300 men will get obletirated, they won't even hold for a second, until the other cores arrive from wherever they are.
Also equipment, armament and different roles in the army groups mattered in the middle ages.
So the closer to each other, the better.
But if you fight from a distance with a great accuracy, then you want to split your army, because you can take on 1000 men with only 300 men.
Before trench warfare howitzers and mortars were used mainly to throw a projectile over defenses such as city walls. Line tactics had men advance in large groups often in the relative open, weapons were far less accurate so this was safer than you may think, Also you need your oppos with you when you reach the enemy to put down good volleys of fire. Lots more died in WW1 and WW2 because weapons, especially artillery, became so much more effective. The American civil war is a good example of weapons beginning to be to effective for the line tactics used during this period. Sorry that became an essay.
Howitzer was not used during the Napolionic war so much, since it was too expensive, and its ammo was too expensive and slow to make.
Imagine, that was as new as the Battleships in WW2, and the Tanks in the beginning of WW1.
Iron and Coal were still very espensive.
In regards to Britian wanting peace, it's more a case that we don't like the continent being dominated by any one European power, as that leads to more of a danger to the United Kingdom as a whole.
The bit about the British seeking to restore the balance of power for the sake of a lasting piece is utter bunk. At best, they saw a rising power that would soon become too great a threat, more likely they didn't appreciate the competition for global dominance.
The Coalition’s move may seem dumb but this video left a few details of what occurred before the battle. To summarize it, Napoleon devised a plan to make it seem like Vienna is wide open which in turn, gave the coalition the idea that they could envelop the French right and cut off their line of retreat. Moreover, a few days before the battle, Napoleon tried to make it look like that he and the army were demoralized by quickly accepting proposed terms, wearing dirty clothes, sighing when in the presence of the enemy, and lastly, ordering Soult’s corps to abandon the high ground of Pratzen heights in confusion and chaos which further solidified the coalition’s views that the French Army was incompetent and demoralized. This is also important because keeping the high ground is one of the most important rules of war. However, this display of “military weakness” fooled the coalition, so much so that when the Russian Emperor’s aides came back from a negotiation with Napoleon, they reported that the advance guard is enough to defeat the entire French army.
@SoGal at 14'45 moving part of your army alone on different roads can be dangerous and before musket/cannon fire, the power of an army was its shock capability then the more you group your troops the more shock value you have. Also you're less exposed to ambushes or one part of your army being cut from the main group and destroyed. The corps system needed to be executed with good timing and coordination and each corps had to be able to defend itself long enough to be reinforced by the others.
I think the core system is innovative because it has all the tools an large army has.
So not just that it can move quick but it can say come across a bridge destroyed by the enemy- no worries engineers repair it. Come across enemy behind a fortified position no worries cannons then infantry to clear them.
Enemy cannons, fix their gaze with your infantry, engage with your own cannon send the cavalry round their flanks. Skirmeshers run them down with cavalry Etc etc
It's the flexibility to react, on the march, once you encounter the enemy detachments that won't slow you down or force you to trade between expenditures in speed vs keeping all your men alive.
About Howitzers: Field Cannons fired smaller projectiles more quickly, over a flat trajectory to hit targets more directly. Firing at a high angle allows you to not only use plunging fire, but also allows you to fire heavier projectiles further. The cost is, your accuracy goes out the window. The large projectile proved better for explosive filled balls, and the high angle proved useful for sieges against walls, so good to bring with you to shell a city that doesn't move, but less useful for hitting a moving infantry column. Since most armies don't like to have to take 2 different kinds of large guns with them, hybrid cannons were invented where they could do both, although probably not as well as a pure howitzer or field cannon would be, twisting them forever together, where one gun might be a little more field gun, and another a little more howitzer. World war one trenches pushed guns to the far side of howitzer. Field cannons come back later under the name Anti-tank gun. Nomenclature on what is a "gun" gets so weird over the centuries
Horses were the main "mobile" arm of armies until after WW1 - they were even used widely by the German army in WW2, The word "unprecedented in history" I believe means "never before seen in history" so does not refer to wars after this time. Also, the British standing army was never very large - Britain's focus was expansion via trade - 'Bony' referred to the British as a 'nation of shopkeepers' - the main focus of the British was the Royal Navy which was seen as the main tool to control the burgeoning empire. It did control vast areas of land but did not in the main rule by martial law but by co-opting local leaders as allies in government & recruiting locals to serve in the army; governing with a velvet glove - using only the iron foist when it was deemed necessary to maintain and protect trade. At the beginning of WW1 the "standing" British army comprised of just under 250,000 men, of whom nearly half were scattered across the Empire - whereas the German and French armies were many millions.
Napoleon copied the Roman system of legions implemented in 107 BC by the statesman Gaius Marius. Roman legions was a self contained fighting unit that had its own administrative officers as well as doctors, auxiliaries that could fight on its own initiative, and be independent. The corp system is relatively the same thing, only on a bigger scale.
Corps; The US Marines are an administrative Corps in much the same way that the Machine Gun Corps or the Royal Flying Corps (Both WW1) were.
Why was Corps not more common pre-Napoleon; size of armies but also command & control. For most of history your fastest means of communication is a guy on a horse; or sometimes a runner. (The original Marathon was run by some-one who had fought a battle, then ran to Athens to tell them of the Victory & Died from his exertions).
This means that you have to be able to trust the competence of the Corps commanders (Marshals). Plus, a standard strategy was to “march to the sound of the Guns”. Because that meant that your adjacent Corps were fighting someone & you turning up could swing the day. The noise of cannon fire travels faster than a Courier/Despatch Rider, & may travel further, though sound shadows are a thing as well.
This also helps explain why WW1 is what it was, fast communications to a fixed point, Telephone/Wireless Telegraphy (neither of which were very mobile & certainly not over no-man’s land). Then a runner, or possible Carrier Pigeon. Because for most of the Western Front being on a horse was an invite to be shot.
When you talk about it being a 'new' thing to split the army into corps and spreading out instead of clumping - I think styles of war change based on the time period, at at this point it was a revolutionary tactic, but the Romans were employing similar strategies with their legions, only on a smaller scale.
not really, legions were more administrative, they still stuck together on the march, if they intended to fight together. legions in different places were for different battles rather than quicker movement.
also legions are homgenious, made almost entirely of infantry. and thus can not fight a battle on its own and always needs supporting cavalry units (alae). this makes legions mutch more like the regiments and brigades used commonly before and by napoleon.
Austerity is currently named Slavkof v Brno, about 6 miles out of BRNO in Czech.
It's not that the english were taking on the role of preserving the peace in Europe, it is a more that they were trying their best to keep the balance of power in Europe, so that no big power could emerge, which could them threaten them directly, despite their powerful navy. That's why for the big wars of past 3/4 centuries, UK as always taken the side that was opposed to the most powerful european continental power.
Also, napoleonic wars were far from being worse than WW2, but at that time, it introduced new heights of death tolls, because it was the first time massive armies were involved. Before that, armies were relatively smaller, as mass conscription hadn't been invented (which is why the corps system hadn't been necessary)
Use of howitzers (4:30) : The most armies differed between artillery for siege and for a battle. During a siege there were many uses for mortars and howitzers. Within battle cannons were more usefull. Like the infantry was divided in battalions the artillery was divided in batteries. For battle there could be some special howitzer-batteries, but normally a battery consisted of cannons. And in a lot of armies a battery consisted of some cannons and one or two howitzers, e.g. within the Prussian army at Waterloo a battery was composed of 6 canons and 2 howitzers. They got more common on the battlefield in WWI, because warfare differed: Even in pitched battles they dug holes and did fortifications.
Austerlitz (7:00): It's within the Czech Repoblik, 1805 known as Bohemia. The name of the city in the Czech language is Slavkov u Brna.
Britains Plans (10:00): Britain wanted a system of balance. The powers of the european countries should be in balance and peace to allow trade being undisturbed, because trade and naval power were the foundations, on which the British empire stood. The french revolution and Napoleon had destroyed the old system of balance.
Corps-System (14:30) : For example the Romans could do something similar with their legions. But in modern times Napoleons invented it. The first experiments were made at the end of the Seven Years War. But they didn't found a way to coordinate. A famous idea of Napoleon was, to order not only to write the hour onto a message, but also the quarter of the hour the message was send within. Clocks cheap enough for the most officers were not exactly enough to know the minute.
Speed of an Army (16:40) : 20 to 30 km a day (~ 14 to 20 miles). 50 km (~ 35 miles) would be very fast.
Brightness of the allied commanders (22:15) : Well, if they would have been fighting against another general or Maréchal Davout would have been late or their would have been no mist or .... And a lot of generals realised what the new Napoleonic warfare was about, after they recieved such a defeat. Another example of this is the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 for the Prussians.
It was a trap. Napoleon actually occupied the pratzen heights days earlier but ordered it abandoned as if they were leaving in haste, even leaving some of their supplies. At the same time he sent messengers to the allies proposing peace. This bolstered the Allies confidence that the French were on their last legs & decided to attack immediately. Under cover of the heavy fog/mist the french attack force had moved undetected within striking range of the allies centre. The heights changed hands about a dozen times throughout the battle, until Napoleon unleashed his secret weapon , the MAMELUKES, a 'Gift' from the Ottoman Sultan to serve as his personal Guard. The Russian Guards defending the heights were finally routed & Kutusoz ordered a retreat.
Some thoughts on why armies might have stayed together before napoleon on the march.
Smaller armies are at a disadvantage when they meet a larger force. So if a corps ran into the enemy army prematurely then it would be lost. This would mean that you need to be great at logistics, scouting and have competent commanders to coordinate the whole army.
Just marching to your target as 1 group seems easier to manage and safer but at the cost of speed and flexibility.
No sources for this just some thoughts.
Sharpe TV show is good, but based on books by Bernard Cornwell. Books are good. Read the original series, before the later written prequels and sequels.
there were others who figured out similar sytems. as she said it ain't that hard to come up with that. i mean take a relatively big army, split it up into smaller versions of itself, so that the smaller groups can act more or less idipendent...et voila...
21:57 - Napoleon had many things going for him in this battle: youth and talent. He was only 36 years old, probably at the prime of his life physically and mentally - whereas Russia's Kutuzov was 60 and Austria's Weyrother was 50. You can see it in Napoleon's later wars - as he got older his declining health and mental acuity allowed his enemies to bridge the gap between his strategic genius vs theirs, that and they started studying his techniques (similar to what Scipio Africanus did to Hannibal).
Europe during this era was still dominated by nobility. So many (if not all) Generals got their job by being born into nobility rather than talent. Napoleon himself was stymied for promotions before The French Revolution cause he wasn't from a noble family. The Napoleonic Wars changed that, Prussia learning from their humiliation and copying France's example, started to promote Generals based on talent and created a General Staff that was independent of politics and only answered to the King.
Great choice of biography!
I myself have read it twice and it is full of gems about this great man and the era in which he lived. The length of time the Napoleonic Wars spanned is also the same amount of time Andrew Roberts took to write this book, so you can tell he's put a huge part of his energy, resources and his life in general to tell us this fascinating historical figure.
Armies never spread out in history because they couldn’t communicate, and army that was spread out could be destroyed in detail by a smaller force of they were fast enough or communication was bad enough
Rivers and mountains often form natural frontiers that determines borders between two or multiple states and so it’s understandable that many wars have been fought at the Rhine River ever since the days of the Roman Empire.
In Ancient Greece which was a ton of city-states in 600-700 BC first used the military tactic of standing in lines with a shield and a spear. Known as a Hoplite soldier in a Phalanx formation.
Later the Romans in 100 BC would adapt that tactic and advance it. The romans would also form the Roman Legion, which was the first "corps" units. The Roman Legion would consist of these Hoplite style units and some cavalry.
If you know the comedy comic Asterix, which also have a bunch of live-action adaption, such as Asterix & Obelix: Take on Caesar. It clearly shows these mobile legions attacking in formation.
The main issue for western history, and the world in general was that a lot of the knowledge obtained during the Roman times were forgotten and disappeared for a long time during the middle-ages/dark-ages.
The roman way to wage war, the roman engineering, the philosophy, most of it was forgotten or surpressed. As an example it would take almost 1000 years after the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 to re-discover concrete.
Warfare degraded into just charging eachother with your weapon from year 500-900, with not much stratrgy or tactic. The Vikings from 800-1000 would be the origins of the word Berserk, as they would get high on mushrooms and charge the enemy in blood fury.
The metal armor would start to come around in 800-900, and knight like units in 900-1000 as cavalry.
From 1000-1500 war would be fought mostly with Swords and knight cavalry with wooden spears, a few would have pikes. With a backline of archers to shoot at the others as they were charging in.
This is is the hayday of medieval warfare, and is the inspiration for all the mediaval markets and festivals, and stories like Robin Hood, an archer.
The musket in 1500-1600 transformed the warfware into having a broad line to shoot down the charging swordsmen, and since it was long to reload, it was quickly realized that having multiple lines so you could reload in the back came around.
Muskets in lines, with cavalry charging in, un till the musketmen would charge with the bayonets, and the replacement of archers with cannons. Would be the main 1500-1800 warfare method, in the renosaince period.
A period of history, where the old greek and roman ways were re-discovered en-masse. It was in this Enlightment time that Napoleon replicated the Roman Legion, as corps.
It was in the late 1700, by the physics and mathematical progress, that projectory artillery came about, instead of a straight firing canon, which during WW1 would be known as a Howitzer. It is essentially just artillery.
I did do the online Yale course on Greek History, and the first lecture was talking about the Hoplites and how they marched with their shields and spears. But I haven't studied any of the other time periods you mentioned. Thanks for the info.
@@SoGal_YT people just forgot the strategy and descended to mass group fighting
Look at strength of armies at Battle of Blenheim then compare with Ulm and you get ONE reason for the Corps system. Napoleon introduced many ideas on the conduct of war, few if any were his.
7:50 No.Video is referring to events that happened before Napoleonic wars.
I have read that Napoleon had studied the organisation and tactics of the Roman legions, and based his development of the corp system on it.
re Sharp, for a more authentic impression of a Napoleonic battle, I would recommend Sergei Bondarchuk's film "Waterloo"
Something interesting to note, France indeed invented the corps system but actually just modernized the good old Roman Legions. :)
The trajectory of France is strinkingly similar to the Roman empire, for both :
Monarchy => Republic => Dictatorship (Napoleon and Cesar) => Empire
Hi everyone! It is the first video on the channel that I watched. Mongols moved their armies in the same system but not by cores but smaller divisions (times different) and gathered together before battles.
HMS
Victory is still docked in Southampton, South of Britain, across from the Isle of Wight
Portsmouth actually. I tend to visit it while the other half spends loads of money shopping next door at Gunwharf Quays.
@@deanstuart8012 correct my mistake, I live in Cowes Southampton is the closest to me, make that mistake often
@@deanstuart8012 Can't beat the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, The Mary Rose, HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, HMS M.33 plus all the related military museums at the dockyard and close by.
@@destinationmobileone5476 no worries. I've got friends in Cowes and have been seasick on the Red Jet many times. Actually I'm such a bad sailor that I get seasick on the Sandbanks ferry!
Neither Britain nor anyone in the coallition against France wanted “peace” per say. They wanted to maintain the status quo. Napoleon wasn’t of royal blood so he wasn’t part of the cool kids table. He was upper middle class, and rose to power via insurrection/revolution. He also fought for the freedom of Poland which was being devoured by 3 European superpowers. So the allies say they want peace, but what they really wanted was to keep their power. That’s why Napoleon is called the “great thief of Europe”
Quick boring fact the Duke of Wellington had a waterproof boot named after him called the Wellington boot l think you call them Galoshes
Cavalry Tactics: Want to know anything in particular? There's a pretty good video on the subject by Military History Visualized, which didn't have any violent details AFAIR. You could react to on the channel: /watch?v=J4itcJ8Ur2c
His videos are lower production, of course, but he does a good, scholarly job of summing up most material. I know an amount about cavalry tactics in history if you have a particular question.
Thanks. I don't know enough to have questions yet. I think just a good overview for starters is what I need.
@@SoGal_YT The video I linked should be a good place to start, then. If you make a reaction video, you could bring up additional questions.
Sadly World War's 1 and 2 were much worse
than anything that had preceded 1914, but that was because of industrialisation of weapons, and that those weapons could kill much more people in a more efficient way. But for the early 1800's the Napoleonic Wars were incredibly costly in lives as well as economically. The next war that beat the Napoleonic period was the American Civil War. But historically speaking, the bloodiest Military Conquest period goes the the Mongolian's under Genghis Khan and and his successors in the 1200's, which is estimated at about 40 million.
The British were militarily too spread out to build a large enough single army at this time
. Most of the British land Armies were spread out around the Empire, so the Royal Navy had to keep Napoleon stuck in Europe.
William Pitt was the British Prime Minister, wanted to destroy Napoleon as France was a threat to peace in Europe, as was later proven
by Napoleon's constant wars and his extorting the European Countries to pay for the new French system of government to succeed.
Under Napoleon, the French Army grew massively to meet the dangers that were faced by post Revolutionary France. So Napoleon needed to look into ways that he could have a strong military to protect France as well as one that could assemble quickly for an invasion. Some of his Marshals were good while the others were suck ups.
The Rhine is a natural barrier that has always been a major problem for Armies to cross, that's why it is mentioned so much in European wars
.
Bavaria was a separate Dukedom from Austria, and they were long standing enemies. Austria's attack was just the excuse Napoleon needed to go to war against them as France was again on the verge of financial ruin. And war always brought in huge amounts of money, with the added boost of national pride that followed a military win, which Napoleon really needed to keep his new crown.
No, Napoleon didn't invent the Corp system, however he did manage to use it more effectively than most of the European Armies of the time. And no, the U.S. Marine Corp is completely different, size being one, and also the U.S. Marines is mainly infantry and relies on other branches of the military to function effectively.
Napoleon's Corp system combined all the various elements needed to fight a battle in the time period. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is most likely the brains behind the independent Corp idea, and that dates back to the 1618 to 1648 known as the Thirty Years War, the death estimate in that war was between 4.5 to 8 million deaths, however a lot of the deaths were from starvation, Plague and other diseases.
All large Armies of the time did split up to a certain degree when on the move, but limited the distance between each column for joint security. And most military did live off the land mostly (except the British who either took enough supplies or brought them along the root of advance). Napoleon's living off the land meant that they basically stole from villages and towns, which caused hatred to grow against them in Europe.
The Austrian General Mack's defeat at Ulm was far more devastating than Napoleon allowed to be known, he wanted to face the other Emperors. At Ulm the main mistake, as was tat the Austrians and Russians, were working off two completely different calendars. So when they agreed a date to converge and be ready to meet the French, the Russians were at least ten days away. That's why it was so easy to force the surrender at Ulm.
This was the mistake that handed the victory at Austerlitz to the French. With over half the Austrian Army defeated, and disarmed, Napoleon was able to take Vienna without a second battle and seized 100,000 muskets and ammunition.
Napoleon did try to destroy a reasonably large Russian force, but the Russian retreat was a masterpiece of rear-guard defensive actions by the Russian General Kutuzov. But then the Russian Emperor Alexander the First ruined it by taking over the combined forces when Kutuzov met up with the Russian and Prussian combined Armies near Austerlitz.
Napoleon was lucky that the inexperienced Alexander had taken command and that the mist hid most of the French Army. If Kutuzov had been in command, there is no way he would have fallen for the trick of attacking his left flank and giving up the Pratzen Heights, Both Emperor Francis of Austria and Kutuzov wanted to have the majority of the Russian and Prussian forces on the Heights in the centre, and Kutuzov knew that the Russian General Bagration's 13,000 men of his Corp could and would hold the Allied right flank. And they wanted General Docturov to hold on the left with 8,300 men, which faced Telnitz. That would force Napoleon to attack up hill against the bulk of the Allied force in the centre., and the numbers would have favoured the Allies over the French.
Emperor Alexander I stripped Kutuzov of over all command and gave it to the Austrian Chief-of-Staff General Franz von Weyrother, although he was still the actual commander because the he was afraid to take over in case his favoured plan failed, and would then have a scape goat.
Emperor Alexander I put General Buxhowden was in command of the Allied attack on the French right (south), but was drunk during the battle which is probably why he didn't see the danger until it was to late. Buxhowden managed to escape the battlefield, and some how escaped the wrath of Emperor Alexander. Though it was called the Battle of Three Emperors, only two were actually there, Emperor Francis had left the night before the battle started. And to call it a Masterpiece is really stretching the truth, it was mainly luck and extremely poor leadership that won the Battle, but the victors do get to write history. Also, even is the Allies had won at Austerlitz, Napoleon had another 110,000+ men following him from Bavaria, so a second major battle would have favoured the French.
I share hatred of use of horses, donkey's or mules by the military in frontline situations, you never can really forget the sounds they make when they are wounded. Cavalry horses had to be trained and desensitized to the sounds of battle, otherwise they would have been useless. Even today Her Majesty the Queen has her Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, which is made up of The Life Guards and The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons). The horses have to be specially trained so that crowds don't disturb them, their duties are mainly ceremonial, but they convert from horse to Armoured if needed for war. However sadly, the last horses that were killed whilst in service was thanks to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings on the 20th of July 1982. The explosions killed 11 military personnel, 51 people were injured and 7 horses killed. The only thing positive to come out of the attack was the weakened public support of the IRA in the United States.
Marshall Lannes was one of Napolean's greatest marshall and my hero. It would be great if you read the poem by Robert Browning: Incident of the French Camp. Let me know what you think. My name is Michael
the brits ruled the seas , but nobody would try to mess with france on ground .... until recently
Actually, France has always been the powerhouse of Europe till the German's unification the late 19th century, even at the height of the Spanish Empire before. England rivaled because seas allowed them to not worry much about land invasions and just basically focus on the navy whilst France had pratically all of Europe to worry about at its borders throughout its history. And England had Nelson... What can you do on the seas when there is Nelson anyway. He was basically there what Napoleon was on land. Later as France became deeply weakened by the collapse of its first Empire, British effectively grew all round powerful as they fuelled their country with the wealth of their expanding colonies, and they became the world first super power. The US basically took over when Europe basically wrecked itself to insane degrees twice over again, so much than both French and British empire which both were the super powers of these older periods almost collapsed quickly after due the the post war effects.
There was a traditional song Starts with Boney was a warrior way ay ah
The Rhine as a major barrier often used as a defence. It was even the border of the Roman with the Germanic tribes
31:38.the corpe system wasn't very different from the Roman legion system. Took Europe nearly 2000 years to remember.
Haha 😆
probs there were others who figured out similar sytems during those 1300 years. as she said it ain't that hard to come up with that. i mean take a huge army, split it up into smaller versions of itself, so that the smaller groups can act more or less idipendent...et voila...
unprecedented implies previously
Yes, Sharp.
25:36 its very easy to critizase the generals & decitions etc, when we have the advantage to look at the battlefield like we can(: good reaction! Looking forward to more (:
Brits wanted balance, because Europe under one warlord meant invasion o Isles
Thanks I was looking forward to this
Actually
French is the language of warfare
Corps system has created by them and by Napoleon himself put it into action
Words such as : reconnaissance, lieutenant, colonel, are french.
Here in the us we got the bias bad thinking that, frogs surrender.. but in reality this is untrue and fake, only bad propaganda was Jacques Chirac as president of France refuse to say yes to the US request to helps us in Irak. Another example is we only have to read about German Marshall praising French soldiers during the fall of France in 1940 saying great things and even “ we found in these french soldiers, the same fire that we fought at Verdun during ww1” or even the last soldiers to surrender during WW2 were the famous French SS Charlemagne division which was fighting at the chancellor Hitler bunker
Or Boney got lucky with a great guess? Do Waterloo please.
I'll be getting to it :) Trying to go in order.
You have to ask why did they oppose his rule so much. What threat was it to them. They blame Napoleon for all the wars that they clearly started and funded for ten years
The original video link in the description is different than the video you are viewing ;o
As part of the Napoleonic war, please do Horatio Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar.
I will, thanks.
Check out Lindybeige and his video about Sidney Smith
Vive l'empereur
Every Powerful country wanted to make sure that no other powerful country became too powerful .👍👍👍👍👍
Just as a fun sidenote - the word "corps" is French for "body", so a corps can be described as a body of soldiers, so to speak!
Ah nice, I actually hadn't thought of it like that. But I think the French got it from "corpus" which is Latin for body. So it goes back to Rome!
@@SoGal_YT yes! Hahah many European languages do trace back to Latin - French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian to say a few! I don't think "corpus" has ever been used in a military setting in Roman times, though.
I was going to get that book! Now maybe I will.
Tolle Geschichte auch von russland Feldzug super das du napoleon gut findest emojis from hamburg germany tschüss
Problem for the British was that they had their troops all around the world to secure their colonies so they had much smaller force in Europe than the French so invasion to France was impossible for them.
Plus half the population and at it's height a navy that ate up 280,000 men, in per capita terms the French and British had about the same amount of military personal especially by 1813 it's just they where in different branches and as you say far flung garrisons and very late in the war fighting a full blown war against the USA
React to The Invasion that Changed Everything: Soviets In Afghanistan Alternatehistoryhub
When you're playing chess the fact you lose doesn't mean you don't know how to play chess just your opponent was better that day Napoleon's enemies were not fools they simply lost that day they could have been successful they came close
Hi lass have you ever been to the UK yes or no my friend xx
the Rhin is the natural border of France.
*wait for the react of belgium, and hollande*
This video mentions the allies plan but does not say why they acted like that ... Before the battle, Napoleon did everything to make the allies believe that his army was in a pitiful state and wanted to withdraw at all costs. For example, Napoleon sent diplomats to negotiate peace and the fact that he left the heights of Pratzen to the allies was to make them believe that he did not want to fight but to retreat because why abandon such a strategic position? So, at the start of the battle, the allies were extremely confident because everything Napoleon did was a sign that the French army was inferior and that it wanted to withdraw. When the allies saw the French right so weak they hurried to rush on it and THINK then fall on the rest of the retreating army BUT they were falling into Napoleon's trap: the French right flank was quickly reinforced with the arrival of Davout and the rest of the French army, which was in order of battle and not in retreat, appears through the mist and rushed to the heights of Pratzen ... What a masterpiece
Yeah I was surprised this was left out. It's part of what makes winning this battle such a huge achievement.
So basically, Napoleon behaved like a Brit.. in a very perfidious way :P
Yeah. I was surprised too, that it wasn´t even mentioned that Napoleon held the Pratzen heights, but left this position through negotiations where he intentionally made himself look weak. If an Oscar had been around for best actor back then, Napoleon would have deserved it, lol.
While some of the decisions taken by the Austro-Russian commanders may look stupid keep in mind that this was before the era of aerial reconnaissance and radio. The lack of proper reconnaissance of the battlefield and orders not being communicated properly was more often than not decisive factors in battles of this era. Those paintings often depict a huge mess and it truly was that. How anybody could decisively command an army under those chaotic circumstances is mystery to me. Napoleon could do that better than anybody else and that is one of the reasons history remembers his name.
In fact, the word "reconnaissance" means "recognize" in french and its use in a military context originates (roughly) from the napoleonic era (~1810)
There is a way to compensate the lack of efficient communication system: if each unit of your army is led by an officer who is able to manage the situation while he's waiting for informations or for orders from the central command centre, you have a great advantage on the battlefield. This is how the Roman legions completely dominated all the armies they met during several centuries.
@@Elanus19 Sometimes, we say in France that we made the first aerial recon of History. During the French revolution, the army wanted to use the scientists knowledge for military task. So they had the idea to spot the enemy position by using... a balloon. And it worked, during the battle of Fleurus in 1794, an aeronaut corp had been created by Coutelle. After the revolution, French army stopped to use balloons because the war had changed. In 1794, France had a defensive position and fought with static lines, in 1804, french army was more offensive and in movement. Balloons were good but very long to set and to prepare to fly. But the american copied the idea later during the civil war, it seems they had the same problems.
Dividing your army may seem obvious when presented like this, but it needs to be remembered that force concentration has been one if not the most prevalent maxim of war throughout history, SunTzu talks about it, Machiavelli talks about it, Clausewitz really talks about it. If you divide your forces you leave yourself open to defeat in detail and often forgo the opportunity of concentrating against a section of the enemy yourself. The reason why this is brilliant anyway is because it increases mobility after a century of european armies gradually becoming more powerfull but less mobile.
In the 17th and 18th century armies had grown larger and had become equipped with siege artillery in order to besiege early modern fortifified cities. Being larger and equipped with artillery made them slower and more dependent on supplychains. Supplies were stored in depots in fortified cities, making capturing the enemies supply depots the most important objective.
Napoleon basically saw that this dynamic was self-defeating and instead brought mobility and living of the land back at the cost of force dispersal and lessened siege capability. He mostly ignored fortification until the enemy field army was defeated. the key to the strategy was to keep forces dispersed to increase operational mobility and sieze some advantage(such as an envelopment) and then quickly concentrating to regain the advantage of force concentration. However if Napoleon had ever had to fight Napoleon he would have found it easy to take advantage of the initial dispersal of the enemy. In fact several of his victories depended on his enemies unintentional dispersal of forces.
Scale is a thing as well. As you point out in the second part of your comment, armies grew larger and slower, while before that point for most of history entire armies (at least in Europe) didn't exceed the size of a single Corps, thus making the need to divide for supplies less prevalent.
@@k.v.7681 good point, armies became even larger due to the introduction of levee en masse or conscription during the revolution so marching everything down one road became even more unfeasable
I agree with all said and would add:
the roman did have sorta a "corp" system with their legions which were also able to fight independent if necessary, but could be put together in order to form big armies.
Yes, but you forget that often in the past when an army was divided the units it was divided into (often due to terrain issues or poor training or other issues)would NOT be the equivalent of 'corps' but would instead be less survivable units, often lacking one or more elements of the larger army. Napoleons "Corps" were big enough and -self-sustaining enough that, dug in , (and SOMETIMES even if took by surprise) that they could hold out long enough for the main army to come to their rescue. That's the true genius of this system. Increased mobility and also an increase in tactical deception with not as much risk as usually one would get with divisions of an army in the past.
@@remo27 yeah you're totally right the organic artillery and cavalry really helped mitigate the risk. Before Napoleon the part of the army that would often be split off and sent to act independently was often the light cavalry which could not have handled each bad situation on their own.
I see you don’t know much about Prussia. React to a short video called “Ten Minute History Frederick The Great and the Rise of Prussia- by History Matters”, before watching the next video of Napoleon Smashes Prussia.
@SoGal Good Suggestion. Watch the Rise of Prussia by History Matters, before doing the next video about Napoleon and Prussia.
Whenever people split up in horror movies, it doesn't usually go well, right? Because there's strength in numbers. That is the logic behind having an army stick together. The innovation of Napoleon is that he realized that, while you wanted your army together in battle, having them together on the march was bad for logisitics.
and it was also risky to split them up during march. in the end it was a game of chicken in wich in the end he relied on the speed of his army AND his skill in re-assembling them when the time came for battle.
The UK allways intervened in europe against someone who looked like he has enough power to take over all of europe. The habsburgs,the Bourbons, napoleon, tsarist russia, empirial germany and later the 3rd raich.
Not to forget Louis XIV
@@alansmith1989 the Bourbons said it
@@nicbahtin4774 Bourbons* ;)
@@k.v.7681 there fixed
@@nicbahtin4774 Oh! Sorry Nic- I was going by the actual individual in person of Louis XIV rather than group title as in Bourbons. Louix was as much `power hungry` as `Boney` in my opinion. Yes-you certainly beat me to it though. Cheers!
The French shot the ice from underneath the retreating Austrians with cannonfire.
"I wanna see this!"
The horses drowned too
"NOOOO"
i love this channel so much ksgdhgadkdsbjh
shut up
The lakes is myth.
The Rhine river marked one of the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and as such, was indeed crossed many times by the legions ad Germanic armies throughout the ancient era in of itself.
It is also (one of) the main physical barriers between the two main political spheres of power who emerged from the dislocation of Charlemagne's Empire in the 9th century: France and "Germany". Lotharingia, the third one, really was a buffer state, through wich both centers of power fought for centuries (eg: Italy wars in the Renaissance, Benelux invasion in both WW, etc). Kinda fascinating.
it's funny that she knows the rhine for ww2, when it was not even close important as it was for the 2000 years before. in modern time rivers lost a lot or relevance in warfare (it's not disappeared, but you don't have to bluid a woodden bridge to make your soldiers cross waring metal armor.
The wars in Europe had massive influence on the US at the time, especially as they tried to invade Canada, thinking Britain was distracted by the Napolionic wars, in the war of 1812.
I have been to Ajaccio in Corsica and seen where Napoleon was born. There is a statue of him in the town square and I felt the locals were still proud to have had a French Emperor from there.
Vive l'empereur ! vive la France ! Vive Napoléon ! From a Frenchman who loves his country and is emperor
news to the world, people, a frenchman who believes they're the best 🤣
@@JulioLeonFandinho Average power today, but France has had the best army in the world longer than any other country (Charlemagne, Philippe Auguste, Charles VII, Louis XIV, Napoléon, WW1 1918...)
@@savate4 Charlemagne wasn't french (the Franks weren't french), besides I'm not sure if he was the most powerful in his day, you know? there's a place called Roncesvalles... I don't know if you know that his ass was kicked very strong there.
Philippe Auguste, another Frank, another case of french bias, specially because you don't know that in the Iberian were fighting very powerful armies, christian and arabic. Again, remember Roncesvalles? some theories says that were the Moors who kicked Charlemaigne ass, but also some theories says that were the Basques, angry for the presence of the Franks in their lands.
Charles VII, the freaking same bias, but now at least we could talk about french? I think so, he was from another dinasty and like 3 centuries later than the other 2
Anyway, he was powerful? probably... the best army in the world? he only fought against English, how do you know that. Again, did he fight against some christian castillian or aragonese king? against some muslim Sheik? Did he fight against european eastern kingdoms? the Holy Roman Empire? Hungarians? Russians? were they weak?
You're completely delusional, there's no foundation to say that because during the Middle Age there was not a single hegemonic force in Europe... the mere definition of european Middle Age could be 'fragmented'.
Now, Louis XIV? yes, he had the military force, Napoleon, yes of course... but notice the jumping you're making between centuries. You just erased the existence of the spanish Tercios, for instance... never beaten on battle for 200 years or even more. What were doing the french armies in the meantime? I tell you what: losing in Bicoca, in Pavia and so on...
And finally, WW1 I'm not even commenting on that, because just naming that is so chauvinist it's appalling... so, the English? what happened there? well, not the English, The freaking British Empire... 🤦♂️
@@JulioLeonFandinho the ancestors of today's Frenchman are the Franks, the name france comes from francia so its part of our history also phillipe Augustus was french he is the one that changed his title from king of the francks to king of France, also charlemagne did lose battles but he also conquered nearly all of western europe, also charles VII was the king of France not a franck
@@JulioLeonFandinho sorry I do not understand everything, even with a translator ...
There are a lot of approximations in your words, you will have to revise the history of France a little. First the majority of historians consider Clovis as the 1st King of France, "the great encyclopedia of the Kings of France" by Elisabeth Kirchhoff started well with the baptism of Clovis, France is the "fille aînée de l'église". The name of France was Francie but you know at the beginning of the 19th century there was Russia, then after the name of USSR, then again Russia ...
So Charlemagne was indeed French, he was Christian, spoke French (old French, langue d'oil), like William the Conqueror who imported French culture to England as well as his language (you know that 40% of English words come from French )
You tell me about the only defeat of Charlemagne (Ronceveaux). So what ? it had no impact on the fact that he built the largest European empire (with Napoleon). In addition, historians find it difficult to discern the myhte from the reality of this battle, which was nothing but an ambush. No other nation in Europe has achieved this, except maybe the 3rd Reich but it only lasted 4 years (1940-1944). The English and the Spaniards built their empire outside of Europe (easier to fight against defenseless peoples, and to massacre them).
Regarding the best armies in the world, of course we can determine it at a moment M, this is measured in terms of men, equipment, training ... No army in the world on the ground could measure up to that of the Grande Armée, but that does not mean that it cannot be destroyed by using roundabout means (fighting mainly at sea as the English did, even if there were French naval victories too, guerrilla warfare as the Spaniards did, or in Russia let the French go deep into the territory, burn the land, burn Moscow ...)
but it only worked because the whole of Europe rose up against him. You could say that the US had the best army in the world in 1975, but it still lost in Vietnam.
"jumps I'm making between centuries": yes I'm not going to do a novel but there would be so much to say! William the Conqueror who succeeded in the invasion of England, Bouvines with Philippe Auguste, Louis VIII the lion, the crusades of Saint-Louis, Philippe le Bel ... Joan of Arc and the 100 years war finally won by the France thanks to its artillery (massacre of Castillon), Francçois 1er with Marignan, Henri IV, Louis XIII and Richelieu with the capture of La Rochelle, Louis XIV who made war on all of Europe, Louis XV with Fontenoy, Louis XVI with victory in the Americas ...
Of course there have been defeats: France has 1500 years of history!
But there have been many more victories. It is the nation with the highest number of military victories in the world.
Choosing Napoleon`s biography by Roberts was a VERY GOOD choice :)