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.
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).
@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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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".
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.
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.
@@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 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.
To answer your question on why soldiers back then were on a line formation: Because muskets weren't as accurate as today's or even the early 1900's rifles. So to make shooting more effective, they would form in lines and shoot at the same time for devastating effects. Basically volley shots. They would shoot in rows. After the first row shoots, they would duck, reload, and then the ones behind them were to shoot. Repeat until the last column. And it takes quite a long time to reload early guns.
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.
@@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).
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...
@@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.
During Austerlitz Campaign , it was Russians that were actually calling the shots since Austrians were pretty much enmasculated after half of their army under General Mack's command surrendered in Ulm in. 16:15. It was the young an inexperienced Russian Emperor Tsar Alexander who insisted to make stand and attack at Austerlitz contrary to the advice of his advisors including Russian commander in chief General Kutuzov. Napoleon was manipilating and expecting a move just like that from his adversaries Napoleon himself did not invent corps organisation , in theory it was known in Ancient Regime French Army before French Revolution but Napoleon was the one who used corps organisation in his Grande Armee in most extensively and most efficiently first time , most of his Grande Armee moved in corps organisation system under his Field Marshals command , men he trusted and veteran officers (mostly) like Murat , Lannes , Massena or Soult.
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.
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...:)
In a mixed army, where the infantry is the slowest element, you can assume around 25 miles per day for progression. So 160 miles away means between 7 and 5 days away, depending how much the general would have liked to push his soldiers.
"Taking its supplies off scattered villiages". Robbing peasants, and forcing them to starve. Wellington gained Spanish support by paying Spanish farmers in gold for the food and fodder his army required. He hanged soldiers who looted or raped. The French didn't.
It’s a brutal policy, but for the coalition wars, Napoleon did not start them and living off the land ends the war quicker, Savin more life’s in the long run, also Really? Did Wellington hang the British soldiers that went on a rape frenzy after Salamanca? Pretty certain he did not
@@fredbarker9201 Wellington did indeed hang soldiers guilty of rape and looting. The problem at Salamanca, Badajoz etc was that storming a defended fortified city was an extremely bloody business, and rape and pillage of said captured city goes back to at least medieval times, when it was common to send an emissary to the city to basically say 'Surrender and you will be treated well. If we have to storm your city then on your own head be it.' That attitude still prevailed in Wellingtons time amongst the rank and file of the British army, though it was not condoned by the officers. It often took a couple of days or more to gain control of the city and the troops who had stormed it as they'd drink anything alcoholic they could find and then run run wild. Fresh troops would have to be sent in to enforce discipline and hanging a few rapists / looters as an example to the rest happened often after sieges. As to living off the land ends the war more quickly and saves lives in the long run? Er, no. Salamanca was during the Peninsula war, 1807 - 1814. That's longer than both WWI and WWII.
Suchet also made sure to treat the population well and he was the only Marshall that performed well in Spain. Napoleon even said that if he had 2 suchets he would have kept spain
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)
Others will know more about the corps system, but the most important thing to remember is that before the invention of radio and telephones, battles were fought with very limited and slow communication across the battlefield - the so-called "Fog of War", meaning generals didn't know what was happening elsewhere when they were forced to make decisions. Sometimes there was also literal fog blocking the view, like the mist at Austerlitz or the clouds of gunpowder smoke from cannon and muskets.
"So, did Mack not take Bavaria?" - It's a country. How well, would you say, did the coalition troops take Afghanistan? To "take" a country requires more than winning a battle or capturing a town. The Bavarian army was also quite clever in eluding Mack. So the advancing Austrian troops had control over a relatively small part of the country but being on the move did not really have an impact on the rulership or alliance of the country.
Sadly epic history don't really cover the naval battles during the war, although after Trafalgar the french navy mostly stayed in port, rather than risking battle with the royal navy. Their is a video by kings and generals on the battle of Trafalgar which is worth checking out
@@Thunderworks "Naval battles have supporting role." Unless your an Island nation... In which case I think you'll find naval battles are pretty decisive and they can affect land a lot as well, Yorktown for example fell when it did due to the Spanish capturing a British convoy, similarly I would hardly call the Battle in the Atlantic in WW2 a side show etc etc. Naval strength gives you one massive advantage, mobility and Napoleon would have to keep large formations (including at least 2 Corps) in or near coastal areas in case of Royal navy raids, In total at it's height about 90,000 men I believe, that is not a small commitment and those troops could have been used better elsewhere.
@@Delogros The decisive naval battle before Yorktown was the Chesapeake Bay, not a "spanish fleet capturing a British convoy". I think this is a good thing, the British History Channel and British History teacher completly forget the feat of others nation and concentrate only on their rare victory, even in cinema, so seing the opposite is like a revenge.
Regarding corps: yes, it was founded by Napoleon, however there are two kinds of corps in the military. The first one is an actual formation like a brigade, a division etc (a corps is actually larger than a division but smaller than a field army). That is the corps that was used in the French military at the time (and it is still used to this day by medium to large militaries). The second one is the administrative corps and it usually includes all administrative stuff regarding a specific branch of the military (say, Signal Corps, Ordnance Corps etc that the Army has), but it is not used on the field. The US Marine Corps belongs to the second case, as it is the name of an entire branch of the military forces, not a single formation. Yeah, military terminology can be confusing.
During the Napoleonic period they’d usually be one howitzer for every 3-5 cannons. Howitzers were better at attacking fortifications, buildings or in rough terrain as their arcing trajectory could fire over obstacles. Cannons were better at attacking infantry and cavalry as their flat trajectory could bounce through several ranks of men.
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.
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.
Great Britain's foreign policy with regards to Europe was to prevent any European nation gaining hegemonic power over the entire continent. That policy was in place from the early 1600's until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Note that Sharpe is pretty controversial. It popularized some myth, namely the spit-and-tap loading method, and was a bit cartoonish with the period in general. As far as TV shows go, though.... can't think of anything better. There's a good series of War and Peace that has some elements of Napoleonic warfare. I'll post a few comments, to cover a few different points.
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.
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.
@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.
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
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 film Waterloo is really a good place to see what war looked like at the time. I seem to remember it was filmed using 16000 soviet Russian soldiers dressed as French, British and Russian 19th century soldiers and cavalry
Has anyone told her what happened to the horses on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow? Clue: The pony club in France are a group of gourmets who favour a particular type of meat in their meals.
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.
@@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.
12:05 Marshal (Maréchal in French) is a honorific title (not an actual military rank, at least not in France) that can be conferred to a French general, usually in recognition of meritorious service. You'll notice that the video starts with the war of the Third Coalition: third, because there had been two others before, both defeated by Revolutionary France. This means victorious French generals and some were made marshals. Napoleon named 26 in all during his reign.
The thing that made the Corps system so revolutionary, was that logistics dictates everything; food and supply supply levels, travel distance, later fuel capacity etc. To coin the phrase "An army marches on it's stomach". If an army is hungry, it cannot march and therefore cannot attack and eventually cannot move or even defend itself. I'm sure plenty of people thought of this idea, but making those logistics function in such a way that an army could still fight effectively in reality is not as simple as it sounds. Logistics generally could only cope with supplying one large force, this made it slow as large amounts of supplies had to be moved, meaning lots of slow moving wagons etc in a almost constant train. It made an army vulnerable to flank attacks, which leave it unable to move and potentially starved in place. So these huge armies had to be slow moving in order to not out run their supplies or leave their supply trains an easy target for enemy counterattack. By taking his huge army, breaking it down into pieces with it's own fully refined independent logistics, those forces could be supplied quicker as they didn't need as much delivering at a time so the army could attack and retreat if needed, or just push on without such a large concern about supply. He could still bring his forces together into one huge force, or as the video discusses, break up into the smaller corps and appear to the enemy to be everywhere at once. The tactical flexibility this gave him would have been mind-boggling to traditional thinkers. Also, ecos of the time meant that a general (Marshal) wanted/expected to be in command of the largest and grandest force, because that was worth a lot of prestige (basically endless d**k measuring). His Marshals accepting command of small forces at the expense of prestige was practically unheard of. Napoleon was a master of the details and it shows in things like this.
14:45 Prior to the Napoleonic period, armies were small could move in one big clump down a single road. When armies got this big, they couldn't move along a road in one single line. The front of the line would arrive a week before the back of the line. Same thing in the US Civil War. Gettysburg, for example, was the site of a battle because it is where multiple roads came together.
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.
I'm from South Wales and we did not get taught about the French Revolution or Napoleon in school. Year 9 (8th grade), was the year to focus on the relevant period (1700-1918), but being from South Wales the Industrial Revolution and it's impact on the local area naturally took precedence. Additionally, we learnt about colonialism/the British Empire, the Atlantic Slave Trade, exploration (James Cook, Scott of the Antarctic, Franklin NW Passage expedition) and finally WW1. It just shows that even in the UK, things like this aren't always taught and history is such a vast subject that it is no surprise.
Well, that makes me feel a little better...I think? Most countries focus on their own history, from what I can tell. You're right that it's hard to fit all history into a school curriculum. Just too much of it, and unfortunately it's not usually taught in an interesting way. That's one advantage these videos have over a classroom - really brings a textbook to life, so to speak.
By unprecedented in history I think they were including all of Napoleon’s actions including his rise to Emperor. Also yeah, the French were considered the strongest land power up until the formation of Germany occurred and the German empire took that title for a bit
Unprecedented means that is has never happened before, not that it hasn't happened since. So no, WWII doesn't count since it came after. As for what exactly was unprecedented, it might simply have been the size of the armies.
@@emmanuellaurens2132 also true, I kind of commented this at like four in the morning so I wasn’t completely lucid and hadn’t fully registered it (I mean I’m still not fully lucid given it’s only been 2 hours)
Corps are "Armies in Miniature". A corps contains all the elements of a full army (Cavalry Infantry and Artillery) so they could operate independently. Cavalry and Artillery moved by horse. Infantry moved on foot.
What made the corp system work for Napoleon was that he had competent generals and soldiers. It's not like separating your forces wasn't used or worked in the past, but it wasn't a military doctrine before. It typically left your army open to be defeated in detail and left your contingents weak. As armies got larger and as technology like guns became the standard, the corp system made more sense since the components and weaponry of the armies at the time made sense for it. The combination of the size of each corp, cavalry, supply line and guns nullified the strength armies historically needed by being clumped up.
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
"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. ;)
A howitzer had a shorter barrel and higher trajectory. They were used to fire canister (tins of balls) and shell (an exploding ball which had powder in the centre and exploded into about a dozen pieces). Contrary to myth, a shell was not an air burst weapon as fuzes were not accurate. They were bounced like cannonballs, ideally so that the round exploded in front of enemy troops somewhere low on the bounce stage stage of the trajectory. They were also used to fire into dense formations like columns and squares.
When he said the world had never seen anything like it he meant up until that point in history. Also, you need to remember that the world had never seen war on this scale before, battles were generally smaller and focused around fortified locations like castles, the increased effectiveness of artillery was making that form of warfare obsolete, and wars were becoming more and more mobile, which led to new tactics, a similar shift took place with the advent of mechanized warfare.
i really enjoy the classical background music. I am not sophisticated as much as i wish for but i do appreciate the classical music behind your review. it enhances the experience. and people only worry cause lots of small review channels don't follow through with their claims
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.
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
14:39 the limiting factors are communication/control and planning (you relie entirely on written or verbal messages sent by riders between the armies. can you trust them to send them in time, you don't know exactly where the men are at any given time, etc. it requires trust both in loyality and in skill of the commanders) but also reconaissance. spliting up your army allows the enemy to attack each corps individually. if you are slipt up and the enemy is grouped up then they can have numerical advantage in every battle. to avoid this you need to know where the enemy is, or atleast when they get close to your forces. thus you need skilled and numerous scouts, able to spot the enemy in time for your forces to be able to combine in time for battle. this requires a large number of light cavalry. something rather difficult to pull off historically. so you need 1) a trustworthy officer training program, so you can trust your subordinates 2)professional marching standards, so you can more reliably tell when units will arrive 3) you need a large horse breeding program, so you can have a large enough number of scouts. 4)well maped out well maps, so you can more reliably tell when units will arrive. all of these are hard to do, and even then its still risky to do. units can mistake each other for enemies (which even happens today when we have radio communication), and units can get lost. communication can breakdown (because the riders are killed or get lost, or run away). the enemy can launch a counter reconnaissance action, destroying your armies ability to spot their army comeing, etc. commanders prior to napoleon had split up their armies, but it was usually for short periods, as a result of the risks involved.
that said, if you read about how medieval warfare was fought. it was mostly large numbers of small forces fighting. but this was all short distance. any long-distance campaign tended to result in armies combining (and thus forcing the enemy army to combine), short distance splitting up could happen, as if an enemy was too large there were plenty of safe spaces to retreat to (castles and fortified towns). this why 'major battles' are actually relatively rare in medieval times, the preferred way of war was a slow long campaign, made up of a large number of small quick attacks. rather than a quick campaign made up of a large slow-moving army. (it ends up being quick, despite moving slowly as you end up having a single decisive battle where you crush the enemy's army) major battles then increase in frequency as siege technology eclipses standard fortifications, resulting in fortifications becoming more expensive and thus rarer.
The reason that most of Europes armies stuck together was because of supply and fear of the enemy armies learning of the dispersal of your forces which would leave them vulnerable to be destroyed piecemeal. And most of Europe is fairly open and flat compared to America, so the idea that your divided army would be discovered was very real. But the Corps system allowed the armies to move faster to each other’s aid and fight alone until the others arrived.
As far as I know, Howitzers were mainly used as Siege Artillery in order to fire over city or fortress walls whereas cannons were mainly used to either pound down the walls with brute force or against armies in the field where they could use round shot which would lay waste to anything in it's path as it bounces along the ground or canister, turning a cannon into a giant shotgun. Then there's Britain's position. A Unified Europe with militaristic aims presented a threat to us in the UK. Anyone who controlled all of Europe would have been able to use the continent's resources to build a navy larger than Britain's, like how the Americans managed to build their vast navy in the modern era. I see Britain in the Napoleonic Wars as similar in role to the USA in World War II. Both supported their allies with equipment/money (Britain through subsidies and America through Lend Lease) Both were a great economic power which was largely safe from invasion. Both launched an attack on Western Europe while allies provided much of the man power on another front.
What is missing about the Corps system and armies moving close together is that the scale of armies vastly changed with the French Revolution. Prior to the revolution, nations had a professional army that was commanded by a single general. Remember that there were no radios. Moving independently required an elaborate and sophisticated courier and staff system. Staying under a single commander meant staying under direct control. With the French Revolution and the levee en mass, everyone's armies got larger. Napoleon was able to coordinate multiple trusted and trained commanders to move independently with staff officers in place. The other nations, without that infrastructure, could only use older systems to lesser success.
Note: emperor Alexander suffered from PTSD after Austerlitz which affected his politics and reforms. Also, Desembrist revolt was influenced by the latter campaign in Europe
The problem with spreading out your force is primarily something called "defeat in detail" meaning basically that whoever outnumbers the other at the point of battle has a big advantage. There is a Montemayor video that does a good job of explaining the concept. If you spread out your army and cant organize and bring it back together in time then you are very very likely to get beaten. It's not like splitting up armies was never done before Napolean but even well after him it was often a risky move and no one had come up with the split cores as a consistent and ever-present piece of their strategy.
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
The unprecedented part was Napoleon's swift rise to power. As said in the video, he rose from anonimity and impoverished provincial nobility to ruler of France in 10 years. That hasn't been seen before. As far as the river Rhine - yes, WW2, Napoleon, the 30 years war, and if we go all the way back to antiquity, Julius Caesar crossed the river during his punitive expedition against a Germanic tribal king. That happened about 2070 years ago, during Caesar's Gallic Wars. He wrote an account in 3rd person view called De Bello Gallico, or The Gallic War. You can find good historical videos on that on the Kings and Generals channel.
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.
@@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
Lots of military jargon came from the French language. Try to remember that France is the country that was the most at war (throughout history) and also won the most wars, therefore it’s understandable that a lot of the military’s jargon came from France.
Napoleon was a military genius. He had the 'coup d'oeil' the flic of the eye. He could read and anticipate the situation. He scared the whole of europe. And it took all of them to defeat him
It was important to the British to restore the balance of power as it was important to the other coalition members. But each nation at the same time had their own agenda. Britain was well on it's way to becoming the world's first superpower; an unlikely course should the French Empire gain further power.
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.
Infantry, cavalry and artillery: Think of it as a bit like like rock, paper scissors. Each has theuir strengths and weaknesses. - Infantry are the backbone of the army and do most of the fighting (and dying). Heavy infantry are essential if you want to win. - On open ground cavalry trumps infantry because it's much quicker and more manouveurable, plus a cavalry charge is devasting to infantry, especially in open formation. Muskets only had a effective range of about 50 yards so you could only get off one volley before a cavalry charge hit. In woods or rocky ground or if trapped/in a pitched melee cavalry loses it's mobility and becomes vulnerable. On open ground the infantry's only defense was to form square (4 lines of infantry all facing outwards with bristling bayonets like a prickly hedge in a hollow square). Horses won't charge a tight disciplined square of bayonets, but the infantry can't really hurt the cavalry either so it's a stand off. However if the infantry had to form square it couldn't move and so was pinned in place (whereas cavalry can easily withdraw if necessary. This left it vulnerable to artillery. - Artillery is very good against static targets like fortifications. Or a tightly packed infantry square. Being in a square and being fired on by artillery is bad for moral because you can't fight back. Green or undisciplined troops are likely to break and run but are then easy meat for any nearby enemy cavalry. So you're buggered. Artillery loaded with cannister shot (like a super size shotgun cartridge) is also devastating at close range to any target in front of it. However it's very vulnerable to fast moving cavalry and attacks from the flanks or rear. It's also not very effective at long range against infantry moving in an open skirmish formation, although the noise and explosions can unnerve them. It's also vulnerable whilst loading.
A few points on the relative state of europe and France. 1) France was consistently either the number 1 or number 2 power in europe for about 1000 years at that point. It was seen as the center for culture, learning, philosophy and science for a very very long time, and French was considered the European language for diplomacy. 2) France was considered to have the most powerful army in Europe for about 700 years at that point and a country that was generally impossible to beat unless through a system of alliances. 3) It had a powerful navy, occasionally able to beat the british navy, but unlike the military colleges for the army, the navy captains were almost all noble, so they lost almost every captain during the revolution. 4)By this time, it had the largest population in europe by a huge margin. A lot of soldiers or a lot of mouths to feed. 5) the British were never able to compete with any real power on Land. Even in WW1, their professional army was only 100 000 men, compared to Germany's and France's millions. They made up slightly for this in professionalism and quality but only slightly. 6) From the 1700s until the Cold war, the British had the single largest diplomatic network in the world. They couldn't fight people on land, but they could get others to fight them.
spread out = a piece of your army encountering the un-spread out army of your opponent and being forced into battle to disastrous results. Napoleon's Corp concept combined with solid aggressive leadership, risked this but were typically well coordinated enough to withdraw/engage/pursue/support effectively.
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.
Oh yes, the Brits had many names for Napoleon. The Brits are also believed to spread the myth that Napoleon was a short man; he wasn't, he was average height for the time, perhaps a bit above average at almost 170 cm / 5'7".
In the Toulon video, the flag with the white cross on a red background was the flag of the Duchy of Savoy who were also fighting alongside the British and Spanish. Savoy was inbetween France and Spanish territories in Italy and was was dominated by many different states throughout history including France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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.
Some principalities formed a coalition with Napoleon. Bavaria became a kingdom under Napoleon. The Rhine Confederation was unified under Napoleon. Reforms were initiated there. The Code Civil was introduced in these areas, and later constitutions adopted these ideas. The introduction of the metric system and uniform weights and measures should be mentioned. On the other hand, the resistance of the other princes and kings. But the positive things of the French Revolution were carried there too.
14:40 Prior to Napoleon, especially before the age of gunpowder, most armies concentrated together for short periods of time before returning home. The technology and weapons of the Napoleonic Era allowed Napoleon to completely reform war as we know it. Before Napoleon: 1) Armies were relatively small, so keeping everyone together was easier. 2) There was not logistics and supply wagons like Napoleon had. 3) Scattering your army meant it could be defeated easily, one by one. Of course, there are exceptions, like the Romans and the Mongols.
to answer on the Corps system like most armies today they are divided into units so you start with a Squad then a Platoon then a Company then a Regiment then a Batallion then a Brigade then a Division and Finally Corps its helps keep an army into groups which makes it more mobile rather just as one mass of troops
Napoleons Marshall's were regular soldiers who raised themselves up through merit, as opposed to previous Generals of French armies who were aristocrats, gaining positions by virtue not of ability but of nobility. Murat was a good example, if you check out some of his uniforms you will find he redefined flamboyant.
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.
Well, the romans really invented the corps system in it's most basic form with their legions and cohorts. A legion was made up by multiple cohorts that's virtually the same thing as corps though they were focused on one type of soldier for one purpose rather than mixing it up like napoleon did.
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.
The other point to remember about the corp system is that armies at this time were comprised of three elements, infantry, cavalry and artillery. Think of these as rock paper scissors. Artillery beats cavalry in the same way that paper beats stone. Cavalry beats infantry etc.but combining these elements in a corp system neutralised those factors. That's the genius of the corp system.
The great problem of dividing your forces (as Napoleon's Corps idea) is that you should trust a lot in your generals/marshals... and each one should know the battle plans... this is quite complicated in a "pre-phone" era without many elements to ensure that the corps are really where they should be (in some battles they had problems with the coordination and this allows the enemy to fight (and win) some battles against only portions of the "big" Army). If they are all toghether, they are slow, but they all fight united...
The Marine Corps is a branch. Corps in this context is used to describe the amount of soldiers, in the same way battalion or platoon can tell you how many men you have. Besides, the Marine Corps was founded before the United States officially declared its independence. And I don’t think a six year old Napoleon would’ve come up with such a revolutionary concept that early in his life
I do not know if this has already been adressed but regarding the corps system, most field armies in europe before the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were much smaller, close in size to that of one of Napoleons corps.
for context over 2000 years ago Gaius Julius Caesar with his legions built a massive bridge on the rhine and crossed into germania, thousands of armies have crossed that river throughout history
About the river Rhine, he have a strategic role in wars since Julius Caesar almost two thousand years before, especially because of the dificulties to cross.
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.
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.
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.
What I find somewhat amusing about SoGal´s reaction is this: "Why did nobody do this before?" Because it was not necessary to do it, because your enemy was as backwards as you were. Let´s recapitulate: Armies before were clumps of levies with a core of dedicated nobles or well-paid mercenaries acting as reliable or shock troops. It is not that older armies were just a bulk of soldiers moving all together like a mass of zombies. They had cavalry too, that scouted, raided supply trains etc. They were under the command of a nobleman - most of the time - who wanted fame and glory for himself. He didn´t necessarily have the greater good of the army in his mind, maybe not even the overall commander of the army had this goal. In essence, if there was a best action for a part of the army to do, lack of command, lack of division, lack of a plan might have prevented that plan from being executed sometimes, or even had prevented the plan of been conceived. The Ottoman campaign that led to the siege of Vienna is a good example of it. They crossed the Danube River for example. But not because of corps, but because of an ambitious sub-commander doing the right thing (maybe by accident - who knows?) But, this was not such a huge problem, because the opponent would suffer from the same problems as well. Lack of communication was a big problem as well. "Send a rider to xy unit to order an attack north" is fine, but, if xy unit was wiped out, or forced to retreat or even just low on ammunition because they successfully fended off an unforeseen attack or whatever in the meantime, you have the problem of formulating a grand battle plan on unsufficient data. Napoleon, with his implementation of a corps system and giving his marshalls somewhat autonomous command and a degree of freedom of decisionmaking in the field was better, because the opponent would not risk to attempt that. Can you believe it? In the foreplay of the battle of Austerlitz, the austrians and the russians communicated their strategic movements, but the use of different calendars (gregorian vs julian) led to a russian delay. The russians weren´t actually late, according to their calendar ofc. The russian army had different language speaking soldiers among them. They had troubles of coordination among their own army. Ofc they would have trouble to coordinate with an allied army. (This problem btw. lasted even to ww1, where both the russian and the austro-hungarian army would have communication obstacles to overcome, in their own armies...) The french, meanwhile, all spoke french - I guess. The opponents of Napoleon would rely on a big battle plan, and the plan would have low flexibility of changing and adapting. This was not such a huge problem, because the opponent would suffer from the same problems as well. BUT... Napoleon :-) With his Corps system he increased flexibility (though his marshalls would not always do exactly what Napoleon expected them to do, but 9 times out of 10 is okish), while retaining the ability to concentrate forces to attack at a specific point. That was a beneficial tradeoff. Basically, if you can direct forces/time to a point that is important faster than your opponent can, you can overwhelm and take that point. Given enough forces ofc. Napoleon defeated coalition forces handily for quite some time. I think a factor would be because the coalition forces had no good coordination amongst them for quite some time. I think this problem haunted coalition forces until ww2. Even in ww2, the allies in 1940 lacked coordination to stop the germans. They did hone their coordination skills though and came back in 1944. Coordination was pretty much lacking in the napoleonic wars and Napoleon, relying on few allies, had a natural advantage here. What we think as natural and common sense nowadays, wasn´t necessarily so back in these days... Just my 2 cents.
@@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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
7:56 unprecedented means "never done or known before", so unprecedented in history means nothing that has happened before that point is comparable.
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.
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.
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 fact that Napoleon’s tactics seem so obvious now prove how much of a genius he really was.
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".
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.
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 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.
To answer your question on why soldiers back then were on a line formation: Because muskets weren't as accurate as today's or even the early 1900's rifles. So to make shooting more effective, they would form in lines and shoot at the same time for devastating effects. Basically volley shots. They would shoot in rows. After the first row shoots, they would duck, reload, and then the ones behind them were to shoot. Repeat until the last column.
And it takes quite a long time to reload early guns.
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).
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...
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.
During Austerlitz Campaign , it was Russians that were actually calling the shots since Austrians were pretty much enmasculated after half of their army under General Mack's command surrendered in Ulm in. 16:15. It was the young an inexperienced Russian Emperor Tsar Alexander who insisted to make stand and attack at Austerlitz contrary to the advice of his advisors including Russian commander in chief General Kutuzov. Napoleon was manipilating and expecting a move just like that from his adversaries
Napoleon himself did not invent corps organisation , in theory it was known in Ancient Regime French Army before French Revolution but Napoleon was the one who used corps organisation in his Grande Armee in most extensively and most efficiently first time , most of his Grande Armee moved in corps organisation system under his Field Marshals command , men he trusted and veteran officers (mostly) like Murat , Lannes , Massena or Soult.
Hey, mate. You don't need to say"Emperor Tsar" just one of the words because "Tsar" basically means "Emperor".
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.
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.
In a mixed army, where the infantry is the slowest element, you can assume around 25 miles per day for progression. So 160 miles away means between 7 and 5 days away, depending how much the general would have liked to push his soldiers.
"Taking its supplies off scattered villiages". Robbing peasants, and forcing them to starve. Wellington gained Spanish support by paying Spanish farmers in gold for the food and fodder his army required. He hanged soldiers who looted or raped. The French didn't.
It’s a brutal policy, but for the coalition wars, Napoleon did not start them and living off the land ends the war quicker, Savin more life’s in the long run, also Really? Did Wellington hang the British soldiers that went on a rape frenzy after Salamanca? Pretty certain he did not
@@fredbarker9201 Wellington did indeed hang soldiers guilty of rape and looting. The problem at Salamanca, Badajoz etc was that storming a defended fortified city was an extremely bloody business, and rape and pillage of said captured city goes back to at least medieval times, when it was common to send an emissary to the city to basically say 'Surrender and you will be treated well. If we have to storm your city then on your own head be it.' That attitude still prevailed in Wellingtons time amongst the rank and file of the British army, though it was not condoned by the officers. It often took a couple of days or more to gain control of the city and the troops who had stormed it as they'd drink anything alcoholic they could find and then run run wild. Fresh troops would have to be sent in to enforce discipline and hanging a few rapists / looters as an example to the rest happened often after sieges. As to living off the land ends the war more quickly and saves lives in the long run? Er, no. Salamanca was during the Peninsula war, 1807 - 1814. That's longer than both WWI and WWII.
Suchet also made sure to treat the population well and he was the only Marshall that performed well in Spain. Napoleon even said that if he had 2 suchets he would have kept spain
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)
Others will know more about the corps system, but the most important thing to remember is that before the invention of radio and telephones, battles were fought with very limited and slow communication across the battlefield - the so-called "Fog of War", meaning generals didn't know what was happening elsewhere when they were forced to make decisions. Sometimes there was also literal fog blocking the view, like the mist at Austerlitz or the clouds of gunpowder smoke from cannon and muskets.
Aaahhh... Finally! Someone dedicated to history :D
"So, did Mack not take Bavaria?" - It's a country. How well, would you say, did the coalition troops take Afghanistan? To "take" a country requires more than winning a battle or capturing a town. The Bavarian army was also quite clever in eluding Mack. So the advancing Austrian troops had control over a relatively small part of the country but being on the move did not really have an impact on the rulership or alliance of the country.
Sadly epic history don't really cover the naval battles during the war, although after Trafalgar the french navy mostly stayed in port, rather than risking battle with the royal navy. Their is a video by kings and generals on the battle of Trafalgar which is worth checking out
That's because land battles are the decisive battles that can win or lose a war. Naval battles have supporting role.
On they're patreon they're making a video on H.M.S Victory so yeah
@@Thunderworks "Naval battles have supporting role." Unless your an Island nation... In which case I think you'll find naval battles are pretty decisive and they can affect land a lot as well, Yorktown for example fell when it did due to the Spanish capturing a British convoy, similarly I would hardly call the Battle in the Atlantic in WW2 a side show etc etc.
Naval strength gives you one massive advantage, mobility and Napoleon would have to keep large formations (including at least 2 Corps) in or near coastal areas in case of Royal navy raids, In total at it's height about 90,000 men I believe, that is not a small commitment and those troops could have been used better elsewhere.
Well that's a shame. Seems like a major oversight, but I'll check Kings and Generals.
@@Delogros
The decisive naval battle before Yorktown was the Chesapeake Bay, not a "spanish fleet capturing a British convoy".
I think this is a good thing, the British History Channel and British History teacher completly forget the feat of others nation and concentrate only on their rare victory, even in cinema, so seing the opposite is like a revenge.
Regarding corps: yes, it was founded by Napoleon, however there are two kinds of corps in the military. The first one is an actual formation like a brigade, a division etc (a corps is actually larger than a division but smaller than a field army). That is the corps that was used in the French military at the time (and it is still used to this day by medium to large militaries). The second one is the administrative corps and it usually includes all administrative stuff regarding a specific branch of the military (say, Signal Corps, Ordnance Corps etc that the Army has), but it is not used on the field. The US Marine Corps belongs to the second case, as it is the name of an entire branch of the military forces, not a single formation.
Yeah, military terminology can be confusing.
During the Napoleonic period they’d usually be one howitzer for every 3-5 cannons. Howitzers were better at attacking fortifications, buildings or in rough terrain as their arcing trajectory could fire over obstacles. Cannons were better at attacking infantry and cavalry as their flat trajectory could bounce through several ranks of men.
Canons were better for fortification walls
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.
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.
Great Britain's foreign policy with regards to Europe was to prevent any European nation gaining hegemonic power over the entire continent. That policy was in place from the early 1600's until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Note that Sharpe is pretty controversial. It popularized some myth, namely the spit-and-tap loading method, and was a bit cartoonish with the period in general. As far as TV shows go, though.... can't think of anything better. There's a good series of War and Peace that has some elements of Napoleonic warfare.
I'll post a few comments, to cover a few different points.
Hornblower is good for the naval aspects as well
@@connorward2400 Master and Commander is worth a watch for the naval aspects.
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.
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.
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 film Waterloo is really a good place to see what war looked like at the time. I seem to remember it was filmed using 16000 soviet Russian soldiers dressed as French, British and Russian 19th century soldiers and cavalry
You forgot a P there... French, British and Prussian not Russian
Choosing Napoleon`s biography by Roberts was a VERY GOOD choice :)
Has anyone told her what happened to the horses on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow?
Clue: The pony club in France are a group of gourmets who favour a particular type of meat in their meals.
You are awesome. It's great to see people who purposely seek out knowledge and understanding. Thank you.
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.
12:05 Marshal (Maréchal in French) is a honorific title (not an actual military rank, at least not in France) that can be conferred to a French general, usually in recognition of meritorious service. You'll notice that the video starts with the war of the Third Coalition: third, because there had been two others before, both defeated by Revolutionary France. This means victorious French generals and some were made marshals. Napoleon named 26 in all during his reign.
The thing that made the Corps system so revolutionary, was that logistics dictates everything; food and supply supply levels, travel distance, later fuel capacity etc. To coin the phrase "An army marches on it's stomach". If an army is hungry, it cannot march and therefore cannot attack and eventually cannot move or even defend itself. I'm sure plenty of people thought of this idea, but making those logistics function in such a way that an army could still fight effectively in reality is not as simple as it sounds.
Logistics generally could only cope with supplying one large force, this made it slow as large amounts of supplies had to be moved, meaning lots of slow moving wagons etc in a almost constant train. It made an army vulnerable to flank attacks, which leave it unable to move and potentially starved in place. So these huge armies had to be slow moving in order to not out run their supplies or leave their supply trains an easy target for enemy counterattack.
By taking his huge army, breaking it down into pieces with it's own fully refined independent logistics, those forces could be supplied quicker as they didn't need as much delivering at a time so the army could attack and retreat if needed, or just push on without such a large concern about supply. He could still bring his forces together into one huge force, or as the video discusses, break up into the smaller corps and appear to the enemy to be everywhere at once. The tactical flexibility this gave him would have been mind-boggling to traditional thinkers.
Also, ecos of the time meant that a general (Marshal) wanted/expected to be in command of the largest and grandest force, because that was worth a lot of prestige (basically endless d**k measuring). His Marshals accepting command of small forces at the expense of prestige was practically unheard of. Napoleon was a master of the details and it shows in things like this.
14:45 Prior to the Napoleonic period, armies were small could move in one big clump down a single road. When armies got this big, they couldn't move along a road in one single line. The front of the line would arrive a week before the back of the line. Same thing in the US Civil War. Gettysburg, for example, was the site of a battle because it is where multiple roads came together.
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.
I'm from South Wales and we did not get taught about the French Revolution or Napoleon in school. Year 9 (8th grade), was the year to focus on the relevant period (1700-1918), but being from South Wales the Industrial Revolution and it's impact on the local area naturally took precedence. Additionally, we learnt about colonialism/the British Empire, the Atlantic Slave Trade, exploration (James Cook, Scott of the Antarctic, Franklin NW Passage expedition) and finally WW1. It just shows that even in the UK, things like this aren't always taught and history is such a vast subject that it is no surprise.
Well, that makes me feel a little better...I think? Most countries focus on their own history, from what I can tell. You're right that it's hard to fit all history into a school curriculum. Just too much of it, and unfortunately it's not usually taught in an interesting way. That's one advantage these videos have over a classroom - really brings a textbook to life, so to speak.
By unprecedented in history I think they were including all of Napoleon’s actions including his rise to Emperor. Also yeah, the French were considered the strongest land power up until the formation of Germany occurred and the German empire took that title for a bit
Unprecedented means that is has never happened before, not that it hasn't happened since. So no, WWII doesn't count since it came after. As for what exactly was unprecedented, it might simply have been the size of the armies.
@@emmanuellaurens2132 also true, I kind of commented this at like four in the morning so I wasn’t completely lucid and hadn’t fully registered it (I mean I’m still not fully lucid given it’s only been 2 hours)
It's "A conflict unprecedented in history" up to that point there hadn't been a major war on this scale with as many losses.
@@scl9671 IF we are talking number of losses the Mongol conflicts have the Napoleonic ones beat
Corps are "Armies in Miniature". A corps contains all the elements of a full army (Cavalry Infantry and Artillery) so they could operate independently. Cavalry and Artillery moved by horse. Infantry moved on foot.
What made the corp system work for Napoleon was that he had competent generals and soldiers. It's not like separating your forces wasn't used or worked in the past, but it wasn't a military doctrine before. It typically left your army open to be defeated in detail and left your contingents weak. As armies got larger and as technology like guns became the standard, the corp system made more sense since the components and weaponry of the armies at the time made sense for it. The combination of the size of each corp, cavalry, supply line and guns nullified the strength armies historically needed by being clumped up.
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
It shows one big thing about the Napoleonic Wars. 1805, a huge victory on land at Austerlitz and a huge defeat at sea at Trafalgar in the same year.
Marshal Lannes: "Ride if you have to, but tell the emperor we're fighting the entire Russian army!"
"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. ;)
A howitzer had a shorter barrel and higher trajectory. They were used to fire canister (tins of balls) and shell (an exploding ball which had powder in the centre and exploded into about a dozen pieces). Contrary to myth, a shell was not an air burst weapon as fuzes were not accurate. They were bounced like cannonballs, ideally so that the round exploded in front of enemy troops somewhere low on the bounce stage stage of the trajectory. They were also used to fire into dense formations like columns and squares.
When he said the world had never seen anything like it he meant up until that point in history.
Also, you need to remember that the world had never seen war on this scale before, battles were generally smaller and focused around fortified locations like castles, the increased effectiveness of artillery was making that form of warfare obsolete, and wars were becoming more and more mobile, which led to new tactics, a similar shift took place with the advent of mechanized warfare.
i really enjoy the classical background music. I am not sophisticated as much as i wish for but i do appreciate the classical music behind your review. it enhances the experience. and people only worry cause lots of small review channels don't follow through with their claims
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.
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
14:39 the limiting factors are communication/control and planning (you relie entirely on written or verbal messages sent by riders between the armies. can you trust them to send them in time, you don't know exactly where the men are at any given time, etc. it requires trust both in loyality and in skill of the commanders) but also reconaissance.
spliting up your army allows the enemy to attack each corps individually. if you are slipt up and the enemy is grouped up then they can have numerical advantage in every battle. to avoid this you need to know where the enemy is, or atleast when they get close to your forces. thus you need skilled and numerous scouts, able to spot the enemy in time for your forces to be able to combine in time for battle. this requires a large number of light cavalry. something rather difficult to pull off historically.
so you need
1) a trustworthy officer training program, so you can trust your subordinates
2)professional marching standards, so you can more reliably tell when units will arrive
3) you need a large horse breeding program, so you can have a large enough number of scouts.
4)well maped out well maps, so you can more reliably tell when units will arrive.
all of these are hard to do, and even then its still risky to do. units can mistake each other for enemies (which even happens today when we have radio communication), and units can get lost. communication can breakdown (because the riders are killed or get lost, or run away). the enemy can launch a counter reconnaissance action, destroying your armies ability to spot their army comeing, etc.
commanders prior to napoleon had split up their armies, but it was usually for short periods, as a result of the risks involved.
that said, if you read about how medieval warfare was fought. it was mostly large numbers of small forces fighting. but this was all short distance. any long-distance campaign tended to result in armies combining (and thus forcing the enemy army to combine), short distance splitting up could happen, as if an enemy was too large there were plenty of safe spaces to retreat to (castles and fortified towns). this why 'major battles' are actually relatively rare in medieval times, the preferred way of war was a slow long campaign, made up of a large number of small quick attacks. rather than a quick campaign made up of a large slow-moving army. (it ends up being quick, despite moving slowly as you end up having a single decisive battle where you crush the enemy's army)
major battles then increase in frequency as siege technology eclipses standard fortifications, resulting in fortifications becoming more expensive and thus rarer.
The reason that most of Europes armies stuck together was because of supply and fear of the enemy armies learning of the dispersal of your forces which would leave them vulnerable to be destroyed piecemeal. And most of Europe is fairly open and flat compared to America, so the idea that your divided army would be discovered was very real. But the Corps system allowed the armies to move faster to each other’s aid and fight alone until the others arrived.
As far as I know, Howitzers were mainly used as Siege Artillery in order to fire over city or fortress walls whereas cannons were mainly used to either pound down the walls with brute force or against armies in the field where they could use round shot which would lay waste to anything in it's path as it bounces along the ground or canister, turning a cannon into a giant shotgun.
Then there's Britain's position. A Unified Europe with militaristic aims presented a threat to us in the UK. Anyone who controlled all of Europe would have been able to use the continent's resources to build a navy larger than Britain's, like how the Americans managed to build their vast navy in the modern era. I see Britain in the Napoleonic Wars as similar in role to the USA in World War II.
Both supported their allies with equipment/money (Britain through subsidies and America through Lend Lease)
Both were a great economic power which was largely safe from invasion.
Both launched an attack on Western Europe while allies provided much of the man power on another front.
What is missing about the Corps system and armies moving close together is that the scale of armies vastly changed with the French Revolution. Prior to the revolution, nations had a professional army that was commanded by a single general. Remember that there were no radios. Moving independently required an elaborate and sophisticated courier and staff system. Staying under a single commander meant staying under direct control. With the French Revolution and the levee en mass, everyone's armies got larger. Napoleon was able to coordinate multiple trusted and trained commanders to move independently with staff officers in place. The other nations, without that infrastructure, could only use older systems to lesser success.
Note: emperor Alexander suffered from PTSD after Austerlitz which affected his politics and reforms. Also, Desembrist revolt was influenced by the latter campaign in Europe
The problem with spreading out your force is primarily something called "defeat in detail" meaning basically that whoever outnumbers the other at the point of battle has a big advantage. There is a Montemayor video that does a good job of explaining the concept.
If you spread out your army and cant organize and bring it back together in time then you are very very likely to get beaten. It's not like splitting up armies was never done before Napolean but even well after him it was often a risky move and no one had come up with the split cores as a consistent and ever-present piece of their strategy.
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
The unprecedented part was Napoleon's swift rise to power. As said in the video, he rose from anonimity and impoverished provincial nobility to ruler of France in 10 years. That hasn't been seen before.
As far as the river Rhine - yes, WW2, Napoleon, the 30 years war, and if we go all the way back to antiquity, Julius Caesar crossed the river during his punitive expedition against a Germanic tribal king. That happened about 2070 years ago, during Caesar's Gallic Wars. He wrote an account in 3rd person view called De Bello Gallico, or The Gallic War. You can find good historical videos on that on the Kings and Generals channel.
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*
Lots of military jargon came from the French language. Try to remember that France is the country that was the most at war (throughout history) and also won the most wars, therefore it’s understandable that a lot of the military’s jargon came from France.
Napoleon was a military genius. He had the 'coup d'oeil' the flic of the eye. He could read and anticipate the situation. He scared the whole of europe. And it took all of them to defeat him
I love your channel keep up the great stuff!
It was important to the British to restore the balance of power as it was important to the other coalition members. But each nation at the same time had their own agenda. Britain was well on it's way to becoming the world's first superpower; an unlikely course should the French Empire gain further power.
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.
austerlitz is now Slavkov u Brna in modern day Czech Republic near the city of Brno, there's a lovely museum there telling the story of the battle
Infantry, cavalry and artillery: Think of it as a bit like like rock, paper scissors. Each has theuir strengths and weaknesses.
- Infantry are the backbone of the army and do most of the fighting (and dying). Heavy infantry are essential if you want to win.
- On open ground cavalry trumps infantry because it's much quicker and more manouveurable, plus a cavalry charge is devasting to infantry, especially in open formation. Muskets only had a effective range of about 50 yards so you could only get off one volley before a cavalry charge hit.
In woods or rocky ground or if trapped/in a pitched melee cavalry loses it's mobility and becomes vulnerable.
On open ground the infantry's only defense was to form square (4 lines of infantry all facing outwards with bristling bayonets like a prickly hedge in a hollow square). Horses won't charge a tight disciplined square of bayonets, but the infantry can't really hurt the cavalry either so it's a stand off. However if the infantry had to form square it couldn't move and so was pinned in place (whereas cavalry can easily withdraw if necessary. This left it vulnerable to artillery.
- Artillery is very good against static targets like fortifications. Or a tightly packed infantry square. Being in a square and being fired on by artillery is bad for moral because you can't fight back. Green or undisciplined troops are likely to break and run but are then easy meat for any nearby enemy cavalry. So you're buggered.
Artillery loaded with cannister shot (like a super size shotgun cartridge) is also devastating at close range to any target in front of it. However it's very vulnerable to fast moving cavalry and attacks from the flanks or rear. It's also not very effective at long range against infantry moving in an open skirmish formation, although the noise and explosions can unnerve them. It's also vulnerable whilst loading.
A few points on the relative state of europe and France.
1) France was consistently either the number 1 or number 2 power in europe for about 1000 years at that point. It was seen as the center for culture, learning, philosophy and science for a very very long time, and French was considered the European language for diplomacy.
2) France was considered to have the most powerful army in Europe for about 700 years at that point and a country that was generally impossible to beat unless through a system of alliances.
3) It had a powerful navy, occasionally able to beat the british navy, but unlike the military colleges for the army, the navy captains were almost all noble, so they lost almost every captain during the revolution.
4)By this time, it had the largest population in europe by a huge margin. A lot of soldiers or a lot of mouths to feed.
5) the British were never able to compete with any real power on Land. Even in WW1, their professional army was only 100 000 men, compared to Germany's and France's millions. They made up slightly for this in professionalism and quality but only slightly.
6) From the 1700s until the Cold war, the British had the single largest diplomatic network in the world. They couldn't fight people on land, but they could get others to fight them.
spread out = a piece of your army encountering the un-spread out army of your opponent and being forced into battle to disastrous results. Napoleon's Corp concept combined with solid aggressive leadership, risked this but were typically well coordinated enough to withdraw/engage/pursue/support effectively.
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.
Oh yes, the Brits had many names for Napoleon. The Brits are also believed to spread the myth that Napoleon was a short man; he wasn't, he was average height for the time, perhaps a bit above average at almost 170 cm / 5'7".
In the Toulon video, the flag with the white cross on a red background was the flag of the Duchy of Savoy who were also fighting alongside the British and Spanish. Savoy was inbetween France and Spanish territories in Italy and was was dominated by many different states throughout history including France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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.
Some principalities formed a coalition with Napoleon. Bavaria became a kingdom under Napoleon. The Rhine Confederation was unified under Napoleon. Reforms were initiated there. The Code Civil was introduced in these areas, and later constitutions adopted these ideas. The introduction of the metric system and uniform weights and measures should be mentioned. On the other hand, the resistance of the other princes and kings. But the positive things of the French Revolution were carried there too.
14:40 Prior to Napoleon, especially before the age of gunpowder, most armies concentrated together for short periods of time before returning home. The technology and weapons of the Napoleonic Era allowed Napoleon to completely reform war as we know it. Before Napoleon:
1) Armies were relatively small, so keeping everyone together was easier.
2) There was not logistics and supply wagons like Napoleon had.
3) Scattering your army meant it could be defeated easily, one by one.
Of course, there are exceptions, like the Romans and the Mongols.
to answer on the Corps system like most armies today they are divided into units so you start with a Squad then a Platoon then a Company then a Regiment then a Batallion then a Brigade then a Division and Finally Corps its helps keep an army into groups which makes it more mobile rather just as one mass of troops
Napoleons Marshall's were regular soldiers who raised themselves up through merit, as opposed to previous Generals of French armies who were aristocrats, gaining positions by virtue not of ability but of nobility. Murat was a good example, if you check out some of his uniforms you will find he redefined flamboyant.
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.
Well, the romans really invented the corps system in it's most basic form with their legions and cohorts. A legion was made up by multiple cohorts that's virtually the same thing as corps though they were focused on one type of soldier for one purpose rather than mixing it up like napoleon did.
it has nothing to do with the corps system. european armies were divided to regiments and companies even before napoleon
@@noname123412 My point is that the legions did in some manner resemble the corps.
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.
The other point to remember about the corp system is that armies at this time were comprised of three elements, infantry, cavalry and artillery. Think of these as rock paper scissors. Artillery beats cavalry in the same way that paper beats stone. Cavalry beats infantry etc.but combining these elements in a corp system neutralised those factors. That's the genius of the corp system.
The great problem of dividing your forces (as Napoleon's Corps idea) is that you should trust a lot in your generals/marshals... and each one should know the battle plans... this is quite complicated in a "pre-phone" era without many elements to ensure that the corps are really where they should be (in some battles they had problems with the coordination and this allows the enemy to fight (and win) some battles against only portions of the "big" Army). If they are all toghether, they are slow, but they all fight united...
Austerity is currently named Slavkof v Brno, about 6 miles out of BRNO in Czech.
The Marine Corps is a branch. Corps in this context is used to describe the amount of soldiers, in the same way battalion or platoon can tell you how many men you have. Besides, the Marine Corps was founded before the United States officially declared its independence. And I don’t think a six year old Napoleon would’ve come up with such a revolutionary concept that early in his life
I do not know if this has already been adressed but regarding the corps system, most field armies in europe before the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were much smaller, close in size to that of one of Napoleons corps.
for context over 2000 years ago Gaius Julius Caesar with his legions built a massive bridge on the rhine and crossed into germania, thousands of armies have crossed that river throughout history
About the river Rhine, he have a strategic role in wars since Julius Caesar almost two thousand years before, especially because of the dificulties to cross.
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.
What I find somewhat amusing about SoGal´s reaction is this: "Why did nobody do this before?"
Because it was not necessary to do it, because your enemy was as backwards as you were.
Let´s recapitulate: Armies before were clumps of levies with a core of dedicated nobles or well-paid mercenaries acting as reliable or shock troops. It is not that older armies were just a bulk of soldiers moving all together like a mass of zombies. They had cavalry too, that scouted, raided supply trains etc. They were under the command of a nobleman - most of the time - who wanted fame and glory for himself. He didn´t necessarily have the greater good of the army in his mind, maybe not even the overall commander of the army had this goal. In essence, if there was a best action for a part of the army to do, lack of command, lack of division, lack of a plan might have prevented that plan from being executed sometimes, or even had prevented the plan of been conceived.
The Ottoman campaign that led to the siege of Vienna is a good example of it. They crossed the Danube River for example.
But not because of corps, but because of an ambitious sub-commander doing the right thing (maybe by accident - who knows?)
But, this was not such a huge problem, because the opponent would suffer from the same problems as well.
Lack of communication was a big problem as well. "Send a rider to xy unit to order an attack north" is fine, but, if xy unit was wiped out, or forced to retreat or even just low on ammunition because they successfully fended off an unforeseen attack or whatever in the meantime, you have the problem of formulating a grand battle plan on unsufficient data.
Napoleon, with his implementation of a corps system and giving his marshalls somewhat autonomous command and a degree of freedom of decisionmaking in the field was better, because the opponent would not risk to attempt that.
Can you believe it? In the foreplay of the battle of Austerlitz, the austrians and the russians communicated their strategic movements, but the use of different calendars (gregorian vs julian) led to a russian delay. The russians weren´t actually late, according to their calendar ofc.
The russian army had different language speaking soldiers among them. They had troubles of coordination among their own army. Ofc they would have trouble to coordinate with an allied army. (This problem btw. lasted even to ww1, where both the russian and the austro-hungarian army would have communication obstacles to overcome, in their own armies...)
The french, meanwhile, all spoke french - I guess.
The opponents of Napoleon would rely on a big battle plan, and the plan would have low flexibility of changing and adapting.
This was not such a huge problem, because the opponent would suffer from the same problems as well. BUT... Napoleon :-)
With his Corps system he increased flexibility (though his marshalls would not always do exactly what Napoleon expected them to do, but 9 times out of 10 is okish), while retaining the ability to concentrate forces to attack at a specific point.
That was a beneficial tradeoff.
Basically, if you can direct forces/time to a point that is important faster than your opponent can, you can overwhelm and take that point. Given enough forces ofc.
Napoleon defeated coalition forces handily for quite some time. I think a factor would be because the coalition forces had no good coordination amongst them for quite some time. I think this problem haunted coalition forces until ww2. Even in ww2, the allies in 1940 lacked coordination to stop the germans. They did hone their coordination skills though and came back in 1944. Coordination was pretty much lacking in the napoleonic wars and Napoleon, relying on few allies, had a natural advantage here.
What we think as natural and common sense nowadays, wasn´t necessarily so back in these days...
Just my 2 cents.
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.