'In this "engrossing," (The New Yorker) vivid, and intensively researched volume, esteemed Napoleon scholar David Chandler outlines the military strategy that led the famous French emperor to his greatest victories—and to his ultimate downfall.'
"Napoleonic war was nothing if not complex—an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally minded opponents into that state of disconcerting moral disequilibrium which so often resulted in their catastrophic defeat. The Campaigns of Napoleon is a masterful analysis and insightful critique of Napoleon's art of war as he himself developed and perfected it in the major military campaigns of his career."
@Kevin F. Kiley You did get that I was broadly agreeing with you, right? I understand when I’m attacked for disagreeing, but really? This “Napoleon wasn’t a narcissist” thing is becoming a blindspot. It actually helps support the dissimilarity argument. As someone dealing with a personality disorder, it makes Napoleon’s achievements even more remarkable. All the while explaining (if not always excusing) some of his manifest faults. I agree he’s not a Hitler, but he wasn’t the Messiah either. Looks like some can only be appeased by outright adulation, and I just don’t have that in me, I’m afraid.
Where did Chandler state that Napoleon was a narcissist? And, I'm sorry, but that has not been proven or even demonstrated to any degree.
How is narcissism 'reflected' in Napoleon's government?
Bonapartism as a political movement came after, not during Napoleon's reign.
Napoleon was not an ideologue at all and generally had no time for ideologies.
Napoleon governed as a civilian head of state, not a military dictator or 'militarist.' To the contrary, he kept his generals out of the government and employed ovewhelmingly civilians to govern the Empire. That is quite evident in numerous publications on the subject. Some generals were employed in the government, such as Savary and Caulaincourt, but they are the exception and not the rule.
Hitler was a genocidal monster. Napoleon was sane and governed by the rule of law as a constitutional monarch.
Secret police were also used by the Austrian and Russian governments.
I spent pleasurable and rewarding long hours with Col Elting in his study over a period of eleven years discussing Napoleon, his character, his subordinate commanders, as well as such subjects as military uniforms of the period. He graciously went through his large collection of Knotel watercolors, made up in binders for ease of use, one evening. These would eventually by published in four excellent volumes.
And Col Elting had discussed various aspects of the period with David Chandler.
After reading both books multiple times between 1965 and 1972 (and taking Chandler's volume with me when I entered West Point in 1972) I came to the conclusion that the Atlas was the superior volume. It was a text book for cadets in the senior course of History of the military art and was published two years before Campaigns. In my opinion, it is less verbose, more accurate, and much more useful than Campaigns.
One interesting and invaluable excerpt from Campaigns, on page xliii of the Introduction, however, clearly demonstrates that Chandler was a fair and honest historian, though not free from error regarding Napoleon and his character:
'Since the 1940s it has been fashionable in some quarters to compare Napoleon with Hitler. Nothing could be more degrading to the former and more flattering to the latter. The comparison is odious. On the whole Napoleon was inspired (in the early years at least) by a noble dream, wholly dissimilar from Hitler's vaunted stillborn 'New Order.' Napoleon left great and lasting testimonies to his genius-in codes of law and national identities which survive to the present day. Adolf Hitler left nothing but destruction. In certain superficial aspects, however, the careers of the two men bear resemblances. Both climbed to power through the use of opportunism in an unsettled period that favored the emergence of adventurers and dictators. Both possessed that magnetic appeal of personality that inspired their devotees. Both overthrew an older society, created new laws in an attempt to set up a new social order, challenged the position of the churches, resorted to police-state terror and atrocities to gain ends; both proved incapable of converting a conquered continent into a lasting Napoleonic Empire or a Thousand Year Reich. But there the resemblance abruptly ends. Even though it is difficult to form an objective view of Hitler in our own time, there can be no doubt that he was not cast in the same mold as Napoleon. Despite flashes of lucky intuition, Hitler was no soldier. Hitler's most lasting perverted achievement for which he will be rememberd to the end of history was genocide; Napoleon will always be regarded as a soldier of genius and the creator of modern Europe. The two most devastating 'corporals' of modern history therefore have little in common. In the words of Octave Aubry: 'This is his [Napoleon's] distinction, and, if necessary, his excuse. When an achievement lasts so long and bears such fruit, it provides its own justification.'
I’m interested @Kevin F. Kiley how well you think this monumental and ‘standard’ but now rather elderly text has survived the ravages of time? I had the privilege to hear Dr Chandler talk and got to converse with him many times. The depth and breadth of his knowledge was phenomenal, but I wonder what he would have made of modern research and the online age.