Napoleon's Maxims of War

Summary

Napoleon's Maxims of War is not a book Napoleon wrote but a compilation made by a French officer, General Burnod, who in 1827 published Maximes de guerre de Napoléon, drawn from the emperor's memoirs dictated on St Helena and other sources. The British officer George Charles D'Aguilar translated it into English in 1831, adding explanatory notes with examples from the campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Montecuccoli, Frederick the Great and Napoleon himself. The version stored in this library is an 1862 reprint published at Richmond, Virginia, under the title The Officer's Manual for the newly raised Confederate army, with a recommendation from the Union general Winfield Scott and a short publisher's preface; it contains seventy-eight maxims, each followed by a note. The maxims move roughly from strategy to tactics to the moral qualities of armies and commanders. The opening group treats theatres of war: frontiers formed by deserts, mountains and rivers; the need to foresee the enemy's moves when planning a campaign; the danger of uniting separate armies close to the enemy; and the rule that every war should have a definite object and forces proportioned to it. Maxim IX compares the strength of an army to momentum in mechanics, mass multiplied by speed, and ends with the command 'Press on!'. Many maxims concern lines of operation and communication, which must be single, secure and short, especially for an army burdened with siege guns or convoys of sick and wounded, and the choice of positions, flank marches, river crossings, mountain warfare and the use of fortified places as depots and hospitals. A middle section addresses the arms: the proportions of infantry, cavalry and artillery, the placing of batteries, the formation of infantry in two or three ranks, and the soldier's essential equipment, which Maxim LIX lists as musket, ammunition, knapsack, four days' provisions and an entrenching tool. Later maxims turn to morale and command. The soldier's first qualification is fortitude under fatigue and privation, courage only the second, and hardship the best school. Veterans should be honoured and paid more than recruits. Councils of war end in the most timid course; the only true wisdom in a general is determined courage. Capitulations in the open field are forbidden, and Maxim LXXI condemns any general who betrays his country's frontier. The first quality of a commander is a cool head, one that weighs impressions at their true value without being elated or depressed. The last maxim urges officers to read again and again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederick. D'Aguilar's notes, which often run longer than the maxims, are a substantial part of the book and supply most of its historical narrative.

Top Lessons

• Speed as a multiplier of strength

  Maxim IX treats velocity as part of an army's force, and many notes show smaller French armies defeating larger ones by rapid concentration. The book teaches that timing and movement can outweigh numbers.

• Endurance before bravery

  Maxim LVIII ranks fortitude under fatigue and privation above courage. The note explains that young soldiers have dash but only experience teaches the patient endurance of hunger, cold and exhaustion.

• Decide alone, consult separately

  Maxim LXV and its note argue that councils of war produce timidity and leak secrets; a commander should take advice privately and bear responsibility for the decision. The point bears on any organisation where committees diffuse accountability.

• Maxims need cases

  D'Aguilar's notes, longer than the maxims themselves, show how bare principles mean little without historical examples, and the last maxim tells officers to study campaigns rather than rules. The book is an argument for learning judgement through history.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The Maxims say little about medicine directly, and that silence is informative: the sick and wounded appear as convoys that slow an army, and hospitals as items in a list of depots to be protected. The book's real bodily content concerns endurance (fatigue, hunger and privation as the soldier's first test), the four days' provisions every man must carry, and morale. Maxim LXXIII's portrait of the cool-headed commander who is neither elated nor depressed by news, and its rejection of temperaments that dramatise every event, can be read alongside modern work on stress and decision-making, though it is a description of character, not of a disorder. For the medical history of Napoleonic warfare, Larrey's and Percy's surgical memoirs are better sources.

• Maxim XII, Note

  Montecuccoli quoted on the need for secure magazines, hospitals, arms depots and supply places along the line of communication.

• Maxim XIX, Note

  The starving, ill-clothed Army of Italy in 1796, its draught horses dead from want, before Napoleon's offensive.

• Maxim XXI

  Convoys of sick and wounded require the shortest possible line to depots.

• Maxims LVIII–LIX and Notes

  Fortitude under fatigue and privation as the soldier's first quality; the four days' provisions and other necessities he must always carry.

• Maxim LXXIII and Note

  The commander's cool head and the unsuitability of excitable temperaments; Montecuccoli's advice never to be anxious or change countenance.