Napoleon On What Makes A Good General

An excerpt from, “Napoleon On War” Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 46-48:

Napoleon proliferated considerations on the qualities required of a general, above all on Saint Helena. Montholon, Gourgaud, O’Meara, and Las Cases were the recipients of statements that overlap:

The first quality of a supreme commander is having a cool head, which receives accurate impressions of objects, which never gets heated, does not let itself be dazzled, or carried away by good or bad news; the successive or simultaneous sensations it receives in the course of a day are ordered in it and only occupy the place they warrant. For good sense and reason result from a comparison between several sensations taken into equal consideration. There are men who, on account of their physical and moral constitution, make a picture of everything. Moreover, whatever knowledge, spirit, courage, and good qualities they have, nature has not summoned them to the command of armies and the direction of major war operations.

Once more, Clausewitz offers some very similar observations. The leader must have ‘an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth: and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead’. Such courage in the face of responsibilities, of moral danger, is ‘courage de l’esprit’—in French in Clausewitz’s text—-although it is not, strictly speaking, an initiative of the spirit, but of temperament. Clausewitz also refers to ‘determination’: its function is to remove the torment of doubt and the dangers of hesitation. Napoleon continues in the same register without excessive modesty:

To be a good general, one must possess knowledge of mathematics. It serves to rectify one’s ideas in countless circumstances. Perhaps I owe my success to my mathematical ideas. A general must never create mental pictures; that is the worst thing of all. Just because a supporter has abandoned a post, it should not be thought that the whole army is involved. My great talent, what most distinguishes me, is seeing everything clearly. It is even my kind of eloquence; it is seeing the substance of the issue straight away, in all its aspects. It is the perpendicular that is shorter than the oblique.

Napoleon’s passion for mathematics dates back at least to the age of 8. He shone in the subject at school in Brienne. His tastes did not incline him towards literature, Latin, languages, and ornamental arts. His eminently practical turn of mind pushed him towards the sciences, which seemed to him necessary for the profession of war he had chosen.

. . .A good general, he said, must not ‘create pictures’: he must not allow himself to be easily impressed; he must keep a cool head, for war is made up of dramatic, unexpected events. In other words, the general must have a firm character. Spirit is a different quality, which makes it possible to see clearly in a confused situation—something that approximates to the coup d’oeil.

. . .Character and spirit must be in balance, as Las Cases reports:

It was rare and difficult, he said on another occasion, to combine all the qualities required for a great general. What was most desirable, and immediately distinguished someone from the run of the mill, was for spirit or talent to be in balance with character or courage: that is what he called being broad at the bottom and top alike. If, he continued, courage was overly dominant, a general would venture recklessly beyond his designs. By contrast, he did not dare to accomplish them if his character or courage was inferior to his spirit. He then cited the Viceroy, whose sole merit was this balance, which nevertheless sufficed to make him a very distinguished man.

After this, we spoke much of physical courage and moral courage; and on the subject of physical courage the Emperor said that it was impossible for Murat and Ney not to be brave; but that you could not have less of a brain than them—-especially the former.

As for moral courage, he said he had very rarely met with the moral courage of the early hours; that is to say, the courage of the improviser who, despite the most sudden events, nevertheless allows the same freedom of spirit, judgment, and decision-making. He did not hesitate to pronounce that he had found himself to possess the most of this kind of courage, and that he had seen very few people who had not remained far behind him.

After that, he said that people had a very inaccurate idea of the fortitude required to fight, in full awareness of the consequences, one of those great battles on which the fate of an army, a country, the possession of a throne, are going to depend. Also he observed that one rarely found generals in a hurry to give battle: ‘They took up position, established themselves, meditated their stratagems; but then began their indecisiveness; and there was nothing more difficult—and yet more precious—-than being capable of making your mind up.’

Military genius is a gift from heaven, but the most essential quality of a supreme commander is firmness of character and a determination to win at any cost.

As we saw above, after coup d’œil, Clausewitz cites determination as the second quality essential to a general. He also refers to firmness, strength of character, self-control—-all qualities evoked by Napoleon:

[ . . .] it is will-power, character, application, and audacity that made me what I am. 

It is through vigour and energy that one saves one’s troops, that one wins their esteem [and] commands respect from the malicious.

The essential quality of a general is strength of character and that is a gift from heaven. I prefer Lefebvre to Mathieu Dumas. Lefebvre had fire in his belly. You see that in the last instance he wanted to defend Paris and he was certainly right; it could have been defended. Turenne did not shine for his spirit, but he had the genius of the general.

Strength of character, vigour, spirit of decisiveness are therefore the predominant qualities—even more necessary than talent and spirit, notions bound up with a capacity for intuition, imagination, and also intellectual training, education, and knowledge:

In war, one must not have so much spirit. The simplest is the best.

Prince Jerome received the following reply in 1807:

Moreover, your letter contains too much spirit. It is not required in war. What is needed is accuracy, character, and simplicity.