正文翻譯
Was Wellington a better general than Napoleon, or was Napoleon just having a really bad day at Waterloo?
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評論翻譯
Henrey Bradley
, Amateur Historian, Adventurer
Ok, let's get one thing straight, we’re comparing fracking Napoleon and Wellington, probably the two greatest Generals in the history of our species.
We’re essentially comparing the Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, of the field of war.
Napoleon fanboys all over the world throwing their croissants on the floor and stomping their little high heeled boots in a tantrum, stop wasting perfectly good pastries and give Wellington the
credit he deserves.
This is the key difference in the character of both men, for Wellington admired and heaped praise on Napoleon, while Napoleon himself scorned Wellington, dismissing his ability, and victory at Waterloo as nothing short of luck.
Yet the achievements of the Duke of Wellington are criminally underrated, he is the genius who never lost a major battle, across his outstanding military career. The commander that conquered vast regional powers while chronically outnumbered, the Master of logistics and quite possibly the greatest tactician of his age. He is the only commander who routinely dominated Napoleonic France on the battlefield, and he did this a stupid amount of times.
Both men displayed unrivalled battlefield tactical depth, exemplary understanding of strategy across their many campaigns, and unique individual styles which they both developed over their long careers, put simply, they stand apart from all other Generals, they’re the most complete generals in the pantheon of war.
Napoleon, ever the copycat, crossed the Alpes into Italy with an army in the footsteps of Hannibal (for me the most complete pre-firearms general), Napoleon then commissioned a grand painting of himself that clearly copied the Duke of Marlborough’s famous portrait, the only difference is, Napoleon asked that he be depicted as super sexy.
Who the frack is the Duke of Marlborough, you say?
While mocking Napoleon is culturally ingrained in me, don’t let that deceive you. For most of my youth, I believed Napoleon was the finest military commander in history, followed by the standard - Hannibal, Alexander and Cesear, in that order.
Notice a distinct lack of Wellington in my youthful list, well that is to my shame, years later I delved into the Peninsular War, reading about figures such as John Moore and the small professional British army that was elite compared to the conscxt units of the continent.
It was impossible not to be impressed by Wellington’s stunning 6-year military campaign across occupied Portugal and Spain, defeating the much larger French occupying forces with shocking ease, in multiple engagements and major battles. After kicking the French armies out of Spain in a series of epic battles, Wellington then casually invaded France in 1813, two years before the Battle of Waterloo, embarrassing the powerful French army guarding the border and then going on a rampage spanking every French army sent to stop him, Wellington showed that Napoleon’s seemingly invincible military that had been dominating the trembling armies of the continent for a decade, was actually beatable.
No other General during the Napoleonic Wars defeated as many French Armies in battle, not even close, the Duke of Wellington stood alone, the undefeated General.
I still rate Napoleon alongside Wellington, the two most complete Generals in history, in fact, had Napoleon displayed the same masterful understanding of Logistics that Wellington had, then Napoleon would likely be sitting in first place, and Wellington in second.
However, Wellington held a clear edge in logistics, and maybe even battlefield tactics, using reverse slopes to counter French artillery countless times, and crushing French columns formed of thousands of conscxts, with smaller forces of elite British soldiers formed in disciplined lines.
After the battle of Sabugal 1811, Wellington wrote; "Our losses are much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men... really these French attacks against our lines with columns of men are contemptible."
Was Napoleon just having a bad day at the Battle of Waterloo?
Yes, but only because old Napoleon was certain he would defeat the British led army of 68,000 with his larger 73,000. Less than half was formed of professional British Soldiers, Napoleon only had to overwhelm the small 30k British force of elite soldiers that formed the core of the allied army, when they broke the allied armies cohesion would collapse and the conscxts would flee the field.
Throughout the war, the cream of Napoleon's marshalls, his very best generals, had been losing battles to British Armies and writing reports about the unequalled quality of the well trained British professional regiments, the difficulty to merely break and route a single regiment was nothing like the large continental conscxt based armies, and this was coupled with Wellington’s ability and unusually effective tactics
On the eve of Waterloo, Napoleon likely felt confident, for just two days earlier Napoleon had comfortably defeated the much larger Prussian Army at the Battle of Ligny. General Blucher commanded 84,000 men, around 15k more than Napoleon who had merely 69,000.
While Napoleon slapped around Blücher, defeating his larger Prussian army, and inflicting some 16k casualties and another 10k routed, yet only a few miles away that very same day, Wellington easily defeated Marshal Ney, at the Battle of Quatre Bras. Schooling one of Napoleons finest generals.
At Waterloo Napoleon had 73k men, and against his strong army was a 30k strong British army of professional soldiers and another 38k mixed allied conscxt units, which totalled 68k.
Napoleon managed to route over 3,000 allied conscxts during the battle and inflicted 13k casualties in the allied army, he did well. However, Wellington had killed twice this number, causing 26k French casualties, and breaking most of the best French units including their heavy cavalry and 8 Imperial Guard battalions.
Wellington had effectively withstood the standard French massed attacks in huge columns, he met them with elite regiments that were more accurate, fired faster and held well-disciplined lines that devastated the French assaults in columns, throwing back thousands of Imperial Guards, the finest French troops. Breaking the spine and spirit of Napoleon’s army, before the Prussians had even arrived.
Wellington said it best after Waterloo; "They came on in the same old way, and we defeated them in the same old way"
好吧，讓我們弄清楚一件事，我們在比較拿破崙和威靈頓，可能是我們人類歷史上最偉大的兩位將軍。
我們基本上是在比較戰爭領域的萊昂內爾-梅西和克里斯蒂亞諾-羅納爾多。
全世界的拿破崙迷們可能會氣得把他們的羊角麵包扔在地上，跺著他們的小高跟鞋發脾氣，但是不要再浪費這些這麼好的糕點了，請讓威靈頓得到他應有的榮譽。
滑鐵盧戰役後，拿破崙說："威靈頓應該撤退，不打那場戰役的，如果他輸了，我就能在法國立足。威靈頓冒的風險太大，按照戰爭規則，我本應獲得這場戰鬥的勝利。
這是兩人性格上關鍵的差異，因為威靈頓欽佩並讚美拿破崙，而拿破崙本人卻蔑視威靈頓，認為他的能力和滑鐵盧戰役的勝利不過是運氣。
然而，威靈頓公爵的成就被嚴重低估了，他是一位天才，在其傑出的軍事生涯中從未輸過一場大仗。他是一位在長期以少打多的情況下征服了廣大地區勢力的指揮官，是一位後勤大師，而且很可能是他那個時代最偉大的戰術家。他是唯一一位在戰場上經常性支配拿破崙的法國的指揮官，而且他這樣做的次數之多令人難以置信。
兩人都表現出無與倫比的戰場戰術深度，在眾多戰役中對戰略的理解堪稱典範，他們都在漫長的職業生涯中形成了獨特的個人風格，簡單地說，他們與其他所有的將軍不同，他們是戰爭萬神殿中最沒有缺點的將軍。
拿破崙永遠是個模仿者，他帶著一支軍隊沿著漢尼拔（對我來說是最沒有缺點的前火器時代的將軍）的足跡越過阿爾卑斯山進入義大利，然後拿破崙委託人為自己畫了一幅宏偉的畫，這幅畫明顯模仿了馬爾堡公爵的著名畫像，唯一不同的是，拿破崙要求將他描繪成超級性感。
你說，馬爾堡公爵是誰？（連結）
雖然嘲笑拿破崙在文化上對我來說是根深蒂固的，但不要讓這一點欺騙了你。在我年輕的大部分時間裡，我相信拿破崙是歷史上最優秀的軍事指揮官，其次是標準的--漢尼拔、亞歷山大和塞薩爾，依次排列。
請注意，我年輕時的名單中明顯缺少威靈頓，這是我的恥辱，多年後我深入研究了（伊比利亞）半島戰爭，閱讀了約翰-摩爾等人物和小型職業英國軍隊，與歐洲大陸的徵兵部隊相比，他們真的是精英。
威靈頓在被占領的葡萄牙和西班牙開展了長達6年的驚人的軍事行動，在多次交戰和重大戰役中以令人震驚的輕鬆方式擊敗了規模更大的法國占領軍，這不可能不給人留下深刻印象。在一系列史詩般的戰役中將法國軍隊踢出西班牙後，威靈頓又在滑鐵盧戰役前兩年的1813年隨意入侵法國，讓守衛邊境的強大法國軍隊感到尷尬，然後大肆鞭撻每一支派來阻止他的法國軍隊，威靈頓表明，拿破崙看似不可戰勝的軍隊，在十年間一直支配著歐洲大陸顫抖的軍隊，實際上是可以擊敗的。
在拿破崙戰爭期間，沒有其他將軍在戰鬥中擊敗過那麼多的法國軍隊，甚至都沒有能接近的，威靈頓公爵獨自站在那裡，成為不敗的將軍。
我仍然將拿破崙與威靈頓並列，認為他們是歷史上最無暇的兩位將軍，事實上，如果拿破崙表現出與威靈頓一樣的對後勤的高超理解，那麼拿破崙很可能會坐在第一位，而威靈頓則排在第二。
然而，威靈頓在後勤方面占有明顯的優勢，甚至可能在戰場戰術上也是如此，他無數次地使用反斜坡來對付法國大炮，並以較小的英國精英士兵組成的紀律嚴明的隊伍粉碎了由成千上萬的應徵士兵組成的法國縱隊。
1811年薩布加爾戰役後，威靈頓寫道："我們的損失比人們想像的要少得多，幾乎不到200人......法國人用縱隊對我們的防線進行的這些攻擊沒什麼成效。"
在滑鐵盧戰役中，拿破崙只是過了糟糕的一天嗎？
是的，但這只是因為老拿破崙確信他能用他的7.3萬名大軍擊敗英國人領導的6.8萬名軍隊。後者只有不到一半的軍隊是由專業的英國士兵組成的，拿破崙只需要擊破組成聯軍核心的3萬英軍精銳部隊，當他們崩潰時，聯軍的凝聚力就會崩潰，新兵們就會逃離戰場。
在整個戰役期間，拿破崙的元帥們，他最優秀的將軍們，一直在輸給英國軍隊，並在報告中提到了訓練有素的英國職業軍團的無與倫比的質量，想要擊破和驅逐一個英國軍團的難度與歐洲大陸以徵兵為主的大軍完全不同，再加上威靈頓的能力和異常有效的戰術使之更加困難。
在滑鐵盧戰役前夕，拿破崙很可能感到信心十足，因為就在兩天前，拿破崙在利尼戰役中輕鬆擊敗了規模更大的普魯士軍隊。當時布呂歇爾將軍指揮著84,000人，比拿破崙多出約15000人，而拿破崙只有69000人。
當拿破崙圍著布呂歇爾打，打敗了規模比他更大的普魯士軍隊，造成了後者大約16000人的傷亡和另外10000人的潰敗時，就在同一天，威靈頓在夸特拉斯戰役中輕鬆地打敗了內伊元帥，離利尼僅僅幾英里遠。拿破崙最優秀的將領之一也因此受到訓斥。
在滑鐵盧，拿破崙有7.3萬人，對抗他的強大軍隊的是一支3萬多人的英國職業軍人軍隊和另外3.8萬多人的混合盟軍義務兵部隊，總共有6.8萬人。
拿破崙在戰鬥中成功地殲滅了3000多名盟軍士兵，並給盟軍造成了13000人的傷亡，他幹得不錯。然而，威靈頓殺死了這個數字的兩倍的法軍，造成了2.6萬法軍的傷亡，並擊潰了大部分最好的法軍部隊，包括他們的重騎兵和8個帝國衛隊營。
威靈頓有效地抵禦了法軍以巨大的縱隊進行的標準攻擊，他以精銳的軍團迎戰，這些軍團更加目的明確，射擊速度更快，並保持著紀律嚴明的防線，破壞了法軍的縱隊攻擊，將數以千計的帝國衛隊，最優秀的法國部隊擊垮。在普魯士人還沒有到達戰場之前，就打破了拿破崙軍隊的脊樑和精神。
威靈頓在滑鐵盧戰役後總結得很好："他們以同樣的方式進攻，而我們以同樣的方式擊敗了他們"。