The late eighteenth century witnessed a transition from the Age of Dynastic Warfare to the Age of National Warfare with the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). These conflicts resulted from the French Revolution of 1789. They were primarily fought between France’s First Republic and several European monarchies, including Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Russia, Portugal, and the Ottoman Empire. Many of these traditional monarchies feared both the spread of revolutionary ideas and the expansion of the French state at their expense. These conflicts are traditionally divided in two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the conflicts gradually took on a global dimension as the political ambitions of the French Revolution expanded. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, Republican France succeeded in seizing and conquering a wide array of territories, from the Low Countries to the Italian Peninsula in Europe to the Louisiana Territory in North America. France’s success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary ideas throughout much of Europe, leading to revolutionary outbursts and challenges to monarchial rule in the following decades.[1] The wars also led to the rebirth of professional armies and the emergence of total war, which has shaped the conduct of warfare over the past two centuries.

Right: Napoleon Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole, painted in 1796 by Antoine‑Jean Gros, portrays a dramatic moment from Napoleon’s Italian campaign as he seizes a flag and urges his troops forward under fire. The painting emphasizes heroic energy and emerging political mythmaking. It is housed at the Palace of Versailles, where it remains on long‑term loan from the Louvre

The modern definition of total war is usually traced to the writings of the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) in his On War (Vom Kriege), published between 1832 and 1835. When pursuing a doctrine of total war a nation mobilizes all available resources in order to destroy another nation's ability to engage in war. In total war, a nation dedicates not only its military to victory, but also its civilian population. Those at home contribute to the war effort, harnessing all the attributes of nationalism to support the campaign. The types and quantities of resources available for this kind of conflict expanded dramatically. This growth followed the rise of the industrial nation-state throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This doctrine was in direct contrast to the policy of “limited war” or campaigns fought for limited objectives as characterized by Europe’s Age of Dynastic Warfare. In limited war kings and aristocrats used local military victories to leverage diplomatic and territorial gains. Versions of total war have been practiced for centuries. The Mongols, for example, mobilized their entire culture for war and were master practitioners. However, modern total warfare was first demonstrated in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It later flourished during the two world wars of the twentieth century.[2] Perhaps the earliest master of this form of total war was the Corsican born French general and later French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte (r.1804-1814).

Born in Corsica in 1769 and educated as an artillery officer in a French Academy, Napoleon Bonaparte’s military success began as a twenty-six year-old French general in the Italian campaigns (1796-1797), where, with an army fewer than 50,000 men he defeated the Italian and Austrian forces on the peninsula, establishing client republics dependent on his own authority. His victories in Italy placated the Directory government in power in Paris, who sent him in 1798, to occupy Egypt, thereby cutting off one of Great Britain’s access routes to India. Britain responded with the destruction of the French fleet at the battle of the Nile in 1799. Napoleon returned to a France reeling from battlefield defeats during the War of the Second Coalition. He used his military influence to abolish the Directory and took his place as First Consul in a three-man consulate. Over the next few years Napoleon consolidated his power until he proclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1804 ruling as a self-proclaimed “enlightened despot” in a manner modeled after Frederick the Great of Prussia. Officially, the War of the Second Coalition ended in 1802 with the Treaty of Amiens, however, the Napoleonic Wars begin a year later with the breakdown of Amiens and the formation of a Third Coalition consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, Great Britain, Sweden, and French royalists to block Napoleon’s continental aspirations. This War of the Third Coalition (1803-1806) witnessed some of Napoleon’s greatest generalship with his victory over the Austrians during the Ulm campaign (1805). The elimination of the Austrian threat set the stage for Napoleon's decisive victory over the Russians at Austerlitz and the Prussians at the battle of Jena. However, 1805 was not a year of complete French victories as Napoleon’s French and Spanish navy was decisively defeated by the British Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) at the battle of Trafalgar.  However, the War of the Third Coalition ended with a decisive French victory at Austerlitz, the consolidation of the French Empire, and the dissolution of the thousand-year old Holy Roman Empire. Again, growing worries over the expanding influence of Napoleon created another alliance, the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807), which now included Prussia. This war lasted two years and ended with another French victory and Prussia losing half of its territory, a Franco-Russian alliance, and Great Britain. By 1807, Napoleon was master of most of Western and Central Europe, with the exception of Spain, Portugal, and Austria.[3]

Left: François Gérard’s Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805 (1810) depicts General Rapp presenting the captured Russian Prince Repnin to Napoleon after the French victory on the Pratzen Heights. Commissioned by Napoleon and first shown at the 1810 Salon, the monumental canvas celebrates the Grande Armée’s triumph. It is located in the Gallery of Battles, Palace of Versailles.

Over the next five years (1807-1812) Napoleon attempted to consolidate his power, but faced increasing resistance as feelings of nationalism grew in the subjected regions.  One of the first areas to rebel was Spain, where Napoleon sent troops to reestablish order at the same time that Great Britain fostered rebellion through its Portuguese ally. Known as the Peninsular War (1808-1814). This bloody campaign took on many of the characteristics of a guerrilla war and was referred to by Napoleon himself as his “Spanish ulcer.”[4] Over time, many of Napoleon’s alliances broke down, forcing him to take military action. The most devastating of these decisions was his invasion of Russia in 1812 which modern historians usually mark as the beginning of the end of his French Empire.[5] Napoleon’s defeat at the hands of Austrian, Russian and Swedish armies at Leipzig in 1813 led to abdication and his exile to Elba, before escaping the island for his brilliant “Hundred Days” campaign and final at the hands of an Anglo-Prussian coalition at Waterloo in 1815.[6]

Napoleon benefited from military policies put in place during the French Revolution, as well as those developed over the eighteenth century by the army of the Ancien Régime. The First Republic imposed a levee en masse (general conscription) on France’s population of 25 million, raising a fighting force by the end of 1794 that included over million men under arms, probably the largest army in history up to that time. These large manpower reserves would serve Napoleon’s Grande Armée well in his wars against the numerous European coalitions organized to stop him. On the operational level, Napoleon was the master of maneuver and concentration of forces, using self-contained army divisions, often 10,000 men, but purposely varied by Napoleon to keep his enemies guessing, that operated on their own, giving Napoleon and his marshals unprecedented strategic mobility. He solved the issue of span of control by grouping his divisions into army corps, varying between 20,000 and 40,000 men, then splitting the army into divisions on campaign to maneuver and concentrate on the enemy army, a harbinger for how modern armies have operated ever since.[7] Once near the battlefield, Napoleon used earlier French tactics of moving troops using columns-of-division on to the battlefield discussed in the French Colonel Jacques de Guilbert’s influential 1772 General Essay on Tactics (Essai general de la tactique), then deploying into line of fire once the appropriate tactical position was reached. In the arm of artillery, the French army had taken the lead after the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), redesigning gun carriages, and casting barrels to reduce weight, creating the famous French twelve pounder that was the model of mobile firepower in Napoleon’s campaigns.[8]  Napoleonic warfare used this artillery, along with infantry and cavalry, to harass troops on the march and as dedicated shock forces in battle, in an effective combined-arms synthesis that would influence Western strategy and tactics for the next one hundred years. Modern scholars are fortunate to have insights into this synthesis derived from the Corsica-born general’s own writings in his Maxims of War.

Right: Édouard Detaille’s Napoléon à Iéna (1867) depicts Napoleon surveying the battlefield after his decisive victory over Prussia on 14 October 1806. Painted in Detaille’s meticulous academic style, it emphasizes imperial authority and the disciplined Grande Armée. The work is housed in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris, where it forms part of the museum’s extensive Napoleonic collections.

First published in French 1830, Napoleon’s original Maxims of War consists of seventy-eight separate statements assembled together after his death detailing the French general’s ideas, observations and insights on a wide range of topics, from provisioning an army, organizing a campaign and commanding soldiers in battle to strategies on empire building and the different command attributes of a successful general and admiral. The first English translation took place in 1831 by Sir George Charles d'Aguilar (1784-1855), a British Major-General, with this edition available to Federal and Confederate officers before the start of the American Civil War.  A later French 1874 edition expanded the number of maxims to 115, with a more reliable English translation completed by the American Army Colonel S.C. Vestal and First Lieutenant F.J. Brunow in 1930. Napoleon’s Maxims of War present the reader with some consistent themes concerning successful military operations, including: the importance of a clear military objective and simplicity of plan, the role of decisive offensive action in seizing and maintaining initiative, the effective use of maneuver and concentration of force to overwhelm enemy forces, and the role of morale in successful military operations. In fact, later generations of military theorists would use Napoleon’s musings on warfare as a source for creating national military doctrines. Through a careful examination of Napoleon’s maxims the modern military scholar can find information corresponding to modern principles of war. The following are a selection of the 115 maxims from the 1930 Vestal and Brunow English translation of Napoleon’s Maxims of War, based on the expanded 1874 French edition, presented here under various themes.[9]

On Generalship

18.) An ordinary general occupying a bad position, if surprised by a superior force, seeks safety in retreat; but a great captain displays the utmost determination and advances to meet the enemy. By this movement he disconcerts his adversary; and if the march of the latter evinces irresolution, an able general, profiting by the moment of indecision, may yet hope for victory or at least employ the day in maneuvering; and at night he can entrench himself or fall back on a better position. By this fearless conduct he maintains the honor of his arms, which forms so essential a part of the strength of an army.

66.) There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.

73.) The first qualification of a general-in-chief is to possess a cool head, so that things may appear to him in their true proportions and as they really are. He should not suffer himself to be unduly affected by good or bad news.

82.) With a great general there is never a continuity of great actions which can be attributed to chance and good luck; they always are the result of calculation and genius.

83.) A general-in-chief should never allow any rest either to the conquerors or to the conquered.

85.) A general of engineers who must conceive, propose and direct all the fortifications of an army, needs good judgment and a practical mind above all.

86.) A cavalry general should be a master of practical science, know the value of seconds, despise life and not trust to chance.

96.) A general who retains fresh troops for the day after a battle is almost always beaten. He should, if helpful, throw in his last man, because on the day after a complete success there are no more obstacles in front of him; prestige alone will insure new triumphs to the conqueror.

On Command, Control, Communication:

12.) An army should have but a single line of operations which it should carefully preserve, and should abandon only when compelled by imperious circumstances.

64.) Nothing is more important in war than unity in command. When, therefore, you are carrying on hostilities against a single power only, you should have but one army acting on one line and led by one commander.

74.) To be familiar with the geography and topography of the country; to be skillful in making a reconnaissance; to be attentive to the dispatch of orders; to be capable of exhibiting with simplicity the most complicated movements of an army…these are the qualifications that should distinguish the officer called to the station of chief of the staff.

Left: The Europe in 1812 map illustrates the continent at the height of Napoleon’s power, showing the expanded French Empire, its annexed territories, and dependent states such as the Confederation of the Rhine, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Duchy of Warsaw. It contrasts these with major opponents including Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

On Strategy:

2.) A plan of campaign should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of thwarting him. Plans of campaign may be infinitely modified according to the circumstances, the genius of the commander, the quality of the troops and the topography of the theater of war.

5.) All wars should be systematic, for every war should have an aim and be conducted in conformity with the principles and rules of the art. War should be undertaken with forces corresponding to the magnitude of the obstacles that are to be anticipated.

29.) When you have it in contemplation to give battle, it is a general rule to collect all your strength and to leave none unemployed. One battalion sometimes decides the issue of the day.

101.) Defensive war does not exclude attacking, just as offensive war does not exclude defending, although its aim may be to force the frontier and invade the enemy's country.

On Tactics:

19.) The passage from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations of war.

31.) When you intend to engage in a decisive battle, avail yourself of all the chances of success; more especially if you have to do with a great captain; for if you are beaten, though you may be in the midst of your magazines and near your fortified posts, woe to the vanquished!

32.) The duty of an advance guard does not consist in advancing or retreating, but in maneuvering. It should be composed of light cavalry supported by a reserve of heavy, and by battalions of infantry, with artillery to support them. The advance guard should be formed of choice troops; and the generals, officers and soldiers, according to the requirements of their respective rank, should be thoroughly acquainted with the peculiar tactics necessary in this kind of service. An untrained company would be only a source of embarrassment.

92.) In a battle like in a siege, skill consists in converging a mass of fire on a single point: once the combat is opened, the commander who is adroit will suddenly and unexpectedly open fire with a surprising mass of artillery on one of these points, and is sure to seize it.

On Infantry:

93.) The better the infantry is, the more it should be used carefully and supported with good batteries. Good infantry is, without doubt, the sinew of an army; but if it is forced to fight for a long time against a very superior artillery, it will become demoralized and will be destroyed. It is possible that a general who is more skillful and a better maneuverer than his adversary, having better infantry, will gain success during a part of the campaign although his artillery park is very inferior; but, on a decisive day in a general action, he will feel his inferiority in artillery cruelly.

On Cavalry:

50.) Charges of cavalry are equally serviceable in the beginning, the middle and the end of a battle. They should be executed whenever they can be made on the flanks of the infantry, particularly when the latter is engaged in front.

51.) It is a function of the cavalry to follow up the victory and prevent the beaten enemy from rallying.

88.) The heavy cavalry should be with the advance guard, with the rear guard and on the wings and in reserve to support the light cavalry.

89.) To wish to hold the cavalry in reserve for the end of the battle, is to have no idea of the power of combined cavalry and infantry charges either for attack or for defense.

90.) The power of cavalry is in its impulsion. But it is not only its velocity that insures success: it is order, formation and proper employment of reserves.

On Artillery:

22.) The art of encamping on a position is nothing else than the art of forming in order of battle on that position. For this purpose the artillery should all be in readiness and favorably placed; a position should be selected which is not commanded, cannot be turned, and from which the ground in the vicinity is covered and commanded

52.) Artillery is more necessary to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry does not fire and can fight only in close conflict. It is to supply this deficiency that horse-artillery has been resorted to. Cavalry, therefore, should always be accompanied by cannon, whether attacking, resting in position or rallying.

54.) Batteries should be placed in the most advantageous positions and as far in advance of the lines of infantry and cavalry as is possible without endangering the guns. It is desirable that the batteries should have a command over the field equal to the full height of the platform. They must not be masked on the right or left, but should be at liberty to direct their fire toward every point.

On Logistics:

21.) When an army is encumbered with siege equipage and large convoys of wounded and sick, it should approach its depots by the shortest roads and as expeditiously as possible.

35.) The camps of the same army should be always so placed as to be able to sustain each other.

55.) A general should avoid putting his army into quarters of refreshment, so long as he has the opportunity of collecting magazines of provisions and forage, and thus supplying the wants of his soldiers.

59.) There are five things which a soldier ought never to be without: his musket, his cartridge-box, his knapsack, his provisions for at least four days and his pioneer hatchet. Reduce his knapsack, if you deem it necessary to do so, to the smallest size, but let the soldier always have it with him. An army marches on its stomach.

On Fortifications:

40.) Fortresses are useful in offensive as well as defensive war. Undoubtedly they cannot of themselves arrest the progress of an army, but they are excellent means of delaying, impeding, enfeebling and annoying a victorious enemy.

45.) A fortified place can protect a garrison and arrest the enemy only a certain length of time. When that time has elapsed and the defenses of the place are destroyed, the garrison may lay down their arms. All civilized nations have been of one opinion in this respect, and the only dispute has been as to the greater or less degree of resistance which the governor should offer before capitulating.

46.) The keys of a fortified place are ample compensation for permitting the garrison to retire unmolested, whenever the latter evince a determination to die rather than accept less favorable terms. It is always better, therefore, to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has resisted vigorously than to run the risk of an attempt to storm.

98.) When a general has laid siege to a place by surprise and has gained a few days on his adversary, he should profit from this by covering himself with lines of circumvallation; from this moment he will have improved his position and will have acquired a new element of power and a new degree of force in the general framework of affairs.

99.) In war the commander of a fortress is not a judge of events; he should defend the fortress to the last; he deserves death if he surrenders it a moment before he is forced to.

On Standing Up a Professional Army:

57.) It is very difficult for a nation to create an army when it has not already a body of officers and non-commissioned officers to serve as a nucleus, and a system of military organization.

On Retaining and Paying Veterans:

60.) You should by all means encourage the soldiers to continue in the service. This you can easily do by testifying great esteem for old soldiers. The pay should also be increased in proportion to the years of service. There is great injustice in giving no higher pay to a veteran than to a recruit.

On Naval Warfare:

113.) The first law of naval tactics should be that as soon as the admiral has given the signal that he is going to attack, each captain should make the necessary movements to attack an enemy ship, take part in the combat and support his neighbors.

On the Importance of Military History:

78.) Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to those of these great commanders.

Napoleon Bonaparte played a major role in the history and development of the military arts. His genius was essentially practical, and his military concepts evolved from the close study of earlier commanders, particularly Frederick the Great. He made the fullest use of the ideas of his predecessors and breathed life into them. A brilliant tactician and strategist, Napoleon was a master practitioner of the art and science of war who used both maneuver and offensive action to meet his opponents on the battlefield of his choosing and defeat them in decisive battle. His command style was personal, highly centralized, and very effective. Perhaps Napoleon’s greatest military legacy comes from the amount of analysis his campaigns generated during the conflict and in the decades after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Unlocking the secrets to Napoleon’s success became the preoccupation of many military analysts, including most famously in the writings of Antoine-Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz. Both men served as generals in the Napoleonic Wars, their theories later becoming required reading in the national war academies which proliferated in the same period.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Napoleon Bonaparte. Maxims of Napoleon. Translated by S. C. Vestal and F. J. Brunow. West Point, NY: United States Military Academy, 1954.

Secondary Sources

Addington, Larry H. The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

_____. The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Bell, David A. The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It. Boston: Mariner Books, 2008.

Chandler, David G. The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History’s Greatest Soldier. New York: Scribner, 1973.

Esdaile, Charles J. The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792–1801. London: Routledge, 2018.

Gates, David. The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001.

Zamoyski, Adam. Moscow 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.

ENDNOTES

[1]  See Charles J. Esdaile, The Wars of the French Revolution, 1792-1801 (Routledge, 2018), for a comprehensive treatment of the military history of France during the revolutionary era.

[2]  For an intriguing take on the modern version of total war being birthed during the French Revolution and Napoleonic War eras, see David A. Bell’s The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Mariner Books, 2008).

[3]  The best overall treatment of the Napoleonic war remains David G. Chandler’s monumental, The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind, and Method of History's Greatest Soldier (Scribner, 1973).

[4]  See David Gates for a detailed examination of the Napoleon’s Peninsula campaign. The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War (Da Capo, 2001); Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 593-662.

[5]  For a strong narrative treatment of Napoleon’s Russian campaign, see  Adam Zamoyski, Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March (Harper Perennial, 2006); Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 739-864.

[6]  Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 1007-1092

[7]  Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century, second edition (Indiana University Press, 1994), 22.

[8]  Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century (Indiana University Press, 1990), 140-141.

[9]  Napoleon Bonaparte, Maxims of Napoleon, trans. S.C. Vestal and  F.J. Brunow (United States Military Academy, 1954), 61-78.