Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies (Essay Sample)

REASONS FOR NAPOLEON DEFEAT BY HIS ENEMIES
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Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies
The Napoleonic tactics were used to describe the strategies that were used in the battlefield in the national armies in late 18th century. The Napoleonic tactics were characterized by speedy movement in the battlefield, cavalry, artillery, combine assault by arms and intense drilling by the soldiers. In addition, they also used a small number of cannons, bayonet charges and short-range muskets. Some of the historians remember Napoleon as the master in a particular type of warfare. The Napoleonic tactics continue to be used even after they were technologically impractical resulting to large-scale deaths in the Austro-Prussian war, Franco-Prussian war and American civil war.
Napoleon started the war because he wanted to take over and rule Britain and other nations. Other countries were reluctant to fight him because of his military power and capacity. Other countries allied with Napoleon because they wanted to be on his side for support in case war erupted. He finally lost in the war because of the policies that negatively affected other nations, and the cooperation of nations against Napoleon.
Most of the Napoleonic battles took place on villages, streams, roads, and farm fields. The French forces regarded mountains, cities, heavy woods, and swamps as unfit areas for combat. The Generals such as Duke of Wellington in the battle of Waterloo sought a terrain that was suitable for his forces. As a result, the infantry regiments used three basic formations for battles. They were line formation, square formation and column formation. The column formation was long and narrow form hence it suited the soldiers moving towards the enemy in an open field and marching down the road. Since the column formation was large, its target was cannon and muskets and the regiment could change the formation when the enemy came closer. It resulted to defeat of Napoleon army in the battlefield.
The line formation was made of three or two line of solid infantry. It assisted in presenting many muskets and allowed the unit to have control of a wide portion in the battlefield then the column formation hence maximizing the units’ firepower. The long lines were difficult to maintain since they had to be maintained over long distances, disruptions such as ditches, tress and fences. As a result, the line formation became a prey for the cavalry charges because they would use their horses to cover the last 46 m while receiving a single volley from infantry.
The infantry square used a rectangular shape or depths of 4-6 ranks with square shape to defend the infantry from the cavalry charges. In addition, its goal was not to present the sides or rear of the soldiers to the cavalry. The soldiers had a difficult time moving in square and the square model proved it was much slow compared to the column formation. In addition, the square model was prone to cannon and musket fire since when the enemy was in proximate than cavalry, the soldiers would change to square formation.
Light infantry was composed of men shorter than 5ft 6 inches because they would precede the regiment as they approached the unit of the enemy. They had the duty of harassing the enemy with musket fire and forced the enemy to withdraw. They fought as skirmishers using the advantage of the space between the soldiers to move forward while reloading and firing at the enemy.
The cavalry units in the battlefield required logical support from the horses as they consumed forage and tired when galloping. The horses were ill suited for the terrain and the troopers had trained to fight riding them. As a result, some of the dragoon units had to fight on horseback and foot. The units of cavalry were vulnerable to fire from artillery since the horses in the battlefield were large targets. When the cavalry units charged artillery, many would suffer as casualties hence few inflicted the artillery. The crew from artillery would fire at the horsemen and retreat to a safe area in the infantry of the unit square. As a result, the cavalry brought headless nails and spiked the guns through hammering the nails to touchholes of the cannons. In addition, it rendered them to be useless in the battlefield.
Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army
Archduke Charles is the third son to emperor Leopold II and was husband to Infanta Luisa Maria of Spain. In addition, Archduke Charles was brother to Francis II, who was the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was an epileptic but despite this he had achieved respect as a reformer in the Austrian army and commander. Archduke Charles was considered as a formidable opponent of Napoleon. In 1797, Archduke Charles had been sent to arrest a victorious march in Italy of General Bonaparte. In addition, he conducted a retreat of over-matched Austrians with their highest skills. During 1799 campaign’s, Archduke Charles was opposed by Jourdan and ended defeating him in battles of Stockach and Ostrach.
Archduke Charles’s ill health made him retire in Bohemia. On the contrary, he was called back to undertake a task and check on the advancement of Moreau in Vienna. As a result of Hohenlinden‘s battle, it foredoomed an attempt by Charles to make armistice of Steyr. He was popular as Perpetual Diet of Regensburg but he denied erecting a sculpture for his honor as the savior of the country. The Francis II named was named Archduke Charles since he was the field marshal, Head of Council war and Commander in chief of Austrian army. He was supported by the prestige of being the only person who had the capability of defeating the French army. As a result, he formed a scheme of reform that replaced obsolete methods in 18th century. The main characteristic of new order was the adoption of a nation in arms belief and adoption of the French war tactics and organization. In addition, the army reforms were not completed in 1809 where Charles was the commander in chief.
Britain and Napoleon
Russia and the Defeat of Napoleon
Napoleon led his army to Russia in June 1812. The army was made up of soldiers from several nations that were under his control. Napoleon had expected a small war that would punish Czar Alexander I for misbehaving when leaving Continental System. As a result, Napoleon had taken 600,000 men to invade Russia. He had decided to confront Russia army in major battle, the battles he usually won. Czar Alexander I knew that he had devised a better strategy and did not face the Napoleon army head on. They kept retreating each time the Napoleon’s army kept attacking. Napoleon was enraged but kept attacking the Russia army until he was deep in Russia. As a result, the campaign did took time than Napoleon had expected. He did not have enough supplies even for the short campaign that he had planned. He had expected that his army would live in the land they had conquered as the usual experience.
The Russian were desperate and adopted the scorch-earth policy when they were retreating. They used fire to destroy the places that they left behind during their retreat. As a result, the Napoleon army had a difficult time to look for the supplies and the army continued to be weaker during the march. Napoleon army had only had a major conflict to Russia in the Battle of Borodino. When Napoleon entered Russia, they had abandoned the city because it was in ruins and was on fire. The Russian army had used the scorch-earth tactics to weaken the Napoleon’s army. Since the harsh winter was setting in, Napoleon decided to retrace their path back to France. The roughly 600, 000 troops were subjected to cruel weather and were under fed resulting to less than 100, 000 troops surviving. The grand army of Napoleon had been destroyed and the Russia troops now flooded central Europe. The Russian army had Austria and Prussia as their allies in the battle against Napoleon’s army. In 1813, Duke of Wellington had crossed Pyrenees between France and Spain hence threatening to invade France. When Napoleon had realized the importance of the situation, he left his army in Russian as he done in Egypt and went to France. He then raised an army of 300, 000 strong men to complete his mission in Russia. By now, Napoleon had lost most of Europe and during the Battle of Leipzig, nearly all the nations of Europe went to war with France. Some places refer to the war as the “Battle of the nations”. The new Napoleon army was crushed and Prussia, Russia, Great Britain, and Austria agreed to come together unified until Napoleon was crushed. The four nations came together and said they were not fighting against France but rather Napoleon.
The British defeated Napoleon in two phases during the wars of post revolutionary France. In the first phase, French troops were denied access to British Isles. In the second phase, Napoleon had chosen to fight the British indirectly through the adoption of economic blockade. However, it backfired because the Berlin Decrees codified his strategy for the whole strategy such that all countries in the world were against Napoleon. His strategy to edge out Britain had the entire word fighting against him. The challenge that Britain faced was regaining control from France because most states in the continent were French’s allies. To survive economically, Britain had to take charge from France.
British had a rough time because it was the only European country not under the French Alliance. However, Britain was not under any invasion and did not face the danger of being demoralized the same way French’s enemies had been demoralized. The challenge worsened after the twin disasters of Jenna-Auerstadt and Freidland, causing Russia and Prussia to give up on the battle; there were both British allies. Prussia joined Napoleon’s...