It may seem that Napoleon had lots of great options for continued success. But he was just one person being swept along by life, like everyone else, and no one’s personal activity can ever be enough to direct the flow of history.
It may seem that Napoleon had lots of great options for continued success. But he was just one person being swept along by life, like everyone else, and no one’s personal activity can ever be enough to direct the flow of history.
Book 13, Chapter 8
It may seem that Napoleon had lots of great options for continued success. But he was just one person being swept along by life, like everyone else, and no one’s personal activity can ever be enough to direct the flow of history.
Summary:
After entering Moscow, Napoleon’s position seemed really excellent. He had control of the city, and the Russian army had retreated and did not attack him for an entire month. Seemingly, at that point Napoleon had lots of great options open to him. He could have pursued the Russian army and destroyed it with his much stronger French army. Or, he could have stopped the looting, and instead supplied his army from the wealthy city with enough provisions and warm clothing to make it through the Winter. He could have moved on to Petersburg to put pressure on the Russian government. Or, he could have staged an orderly retreat to move his army back to Paris. But Napoleon did none of these things, and instead seems to have behaved in the most foolish way possible, doing everything wrong. Did Napoleon suddenly cease to be a genius after entering Moscow? No, the reality is just that, try as he might, Napoleon was only one person. His personal activity was not sufficient to control the flow of history.
quote from the chapter:
Had Napoleon’s aim been to destroy his army, the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series of actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose, independently of anything the Russian army might do.
Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.
In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that guided the event.
The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon’s faculties as having weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify his actions.
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