Waterloo Remembered Day 11: The Mechanics of War

It stays very interesting, also maybe I should call myself the echo of the podcast.

First I can dismiss clearly the assassination theory about the death of Berthier - I went to the archives in Bamberg and had a look what is around and what was published, I wrote a small article on that which was even translated into French by Robert Ouvrad in Le Consulat et l'Empire website.

The open question which in my view cannot be solved is - did he commit suicide or did he fall accidentally out of the window.

Berthier suffered two weeks before his death on vertigo.

He was very much run down both physically and mentally, already out of those two reasons, he could not have acted as chief of staff in the same functioning role as he did up to 1809 (and I see decline already then).

About the B - team - a very strong NO - for the Prussian side. Scharnhorst was not the good staff officer people see in him, he failed already at Auerstedt (e and not a stedt and pronounce it in English) - also at Gros Görschen he gets mortally wounded because riding an attack with the cavalry - not a position of a chief of staff.

But then Gneisenau takes over, he runs with Blücher the so called Army of Silesia - and of course he had mega experience with dealing with foreign units, a big part of Blücher's army were Russians, and the whole army was part of a big coalition warfare. In case I remember correctly Blücher called Geneisenau to be his brains.

I advise reading the series of articles published in the Beihefte zum Militärwochenblatt - Darstellung der Ereignisse bei der schlesischen Armee im Jahre 1813, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Antheils der preußischen Truppen, you can get it online.

It is amazing how Blücher and Gneisenau did run this army and had to deal with recalcitrant blockheads like Yorck (who was under the illusion that he should be cic and not Blücher), so B - team - for staff, no - they were ace compared to the other two staffs.

Not without any reason - Gneisenau played such an important task to re direct the army to Wavre, in contrast to Berthier, he was very much involved in decision making and he knew his boss, Blücher would have been extremely furious in case the Prussian army would have re treated to the Lüttich area.

I also cannot hear any longer that Gneisenau would deliberately delay the Prussian Army - to give a bloody nose to Wellington. It was a superhuman effort that the Prussians did re group within one day and decide the 18th of June, even Boney did not imagine that this would happen. How could he have done it quicker? And yes there was a discussion between Blücher - and Bülow (a very trusted and experienced commander) at what point to attack Boney's army, because Bülow wanted a bit longer, to have 3 instead of 2 Prussian birgades (i.e. divisions) for the attack, but then they mutually agreed that they could not wait any longer fearing that Wellington's army would collapse.

Under Berthier, in his best days, the staff work would have run smother, but Berthier would not dare to modify or to alter any order of Boney.

Attached photo

were Berthier fell off, and also the small church were is body was placed for the night and where Russian officers kept a guard of honour, picking the splinters of the crushed skull of Berthier as momento mori.