Megalomania - the event was actually testing a few of the launches they were trying to build to invade england. his admirals told him no, but he stubbornly insisted, the launches capsized, several thousand soldiers drowned. I have a hard time believeing he didn't have at least some tendencies towards megalomania, he saw himself as a modern day Alexander, and strove to put the entirety of Europe under French control. He nearly succeeded too. Democracy - I'll concede the "relative" portion, because he did hold what seems to be legitimate votes to assume the crown. And even without the military votes, it would've been a nearly unanimous choice. In that regard, it had democratic leanings, but once he assumed control, I think that he pretty much left any democratic values behind him, and ruled with an iron-fist. With regards to the double battles of Jena-Auerstadt, Now, the organization and movement of the Armee i.e. - the Bataillon Carré - was brilliant, I find it hard to give Napoleon too much credit for two reasons : First, the Prussian military was slow, and acted stupid. But mostly it was the slow. The Grande Armee was probably the fastest Army in history, relatively speaking, and the Prussian force of the early 1800s must rank amongst the slowest. They could have minimized such failings if they wre competently led, but the Prussian leaders at this time were nothing special, and their best leader was slain before Jena-Auerstadt. I mean, when Napoleon calls the Queen Consort, "the only real man in Prussia", I have a hard time seeing Prussia as too formidable an opponent. Their conduct during the campaign was inexplicable at best, and downright murderously negligent at worst. Secondly, it wasn't until after the battle that he realized that he hadn't been engaged with the main Prussian force, and that Davout had been, ten miles away. Yes, it was the corps de armee organization that allowed Davout such success against numerically superior foes, and Napoleon's conduct at Jena was well above average, but I don't see Napoleon's genius that befuddled the Austrians time after time, or crushed the two armies at Austerlitz shining through here. Waterloo : yes, the campaign or waterloo was a textbook case of divide and conquer - something Napoleon elevated to an art form, however his performance had clearly suffered. He was often tired, and ill throughout the entire campaign, meaning his subordinates had to take some of the enormous burden he usually carried, unfortuantely he made poor choices for his subordinates - Soult as his chief of staff, despite his complete and total inexperience at such a job, Ney in charge of one wing - particularly inexplicable given Napoleon's view that Ney's grasp of tactics was that of a drummer boy, and Grouchy on the right - who was a cavalry officer who had little to no experience as commander of infantry. He failed to use Davout at all, and even though Murat had betrayed him, he was still the best cavalry officer in Europe. the mishandling of the cavalry would come back to haunt Napoleon because it didn't allow him to fully exploit the victory over the Prussians. Borondino : While the French clearly had the better of the battle, I call it a draw because at that stage in the campaign, it was at least a draw - which for Napoleon was pretty much the same as losing. The Russians escaped intact, and the Tsar's will to continue fighting was unbroken. It left the French an open road to Moscow, but the Russians still had St Petersburg, and the French couldn't possibly take both cities. And even if they had, I am fully convinced that the Russians would've fought anyways - to them, it took on the fervor of a holy crusade. So, because the battle of borondino failed to break the Russian will, or leave an army in tatters, I call it a draw in the conext of the campaign, and perhaps a loss. Disease - Disease is always present in military campaigns, but disease in this instance was particularly prevalent for a number of reasons. First, rather than allow his soldiers to forage off the land, he decided to bring the food with him - a wise choice considering the Russians scorched earth defense - however, among this was a vast herd of cattle. Who died. And left large, rotting corpses. And they died while it was sweltering hot. While the army was marching through a swamp. It's a perfect breeding ground for disease, and the disease laid up almost a quarter of his army before he even reached Smolensk, I believe. maybe more. My problem with the cold, is that by the time the first hard freezes hit, the French were already in full flegded retreat. The campaign was essentially over and the French had lost. And it was an unseasonable thaw that contributed to the catastrophy around beresina. I will say that the winter brought untold horrors onto the survivors of the army on the way back, but the winter didn't influence the result of the campaign, it was already lost when the ice hit.
