NAPOLEON’S INFLUENCE ON MODERN WESTERN MILITARY ARMIES

NAPOLEON’S INFLUENCE ON MODERN WESTERN MILITARY ARMIES
History 100, Staff Group A, CGSC Class 14-001
27 March 2014
1
Throughout history, military leaders have immortalized their legacies by vanquishing their enemies in the battlefield against overwhelming odds. Soldiers and historians have revered their accomplishments by studying their mastery in the art of warfare with the hopes mimicking their accomplishments. Of them all, Napoleon Bonaparte is considered the best military leader in the history of the Western World and has been the most influential with the development of modern day Western armies. According to Knox, “military revolutions are changes in the nature and purpose of war itself.”1 Napoleon's military tactics and strategy have revolutionized European warfare during the 1800s. His use of nationalism, military organizational structure, and combined arms were key factors that helped his juggernaut army conquer most of Europe. The French system led the way for Europe's military modernization and is modeled by the modern day U.S. Army whose military victories and failures have strong familiarities.
The French Revolution resulted in the overthrow of King Louis XVI and the monarchy. It gave rise to nationalism to a heightened level that has never been witnessed in Europe. It unified the people under a profound sense of liberty and a sacred love of the country. French citizens willingly volunteered their services into establishing battalions and answered their nation’s call to arms.2 They were determined to protect this new nation of the people. It changed its military from "being dynastic, private armies, as they had been in Frederick's day, to being national, public armies."3 The officer corps which was only privileged to the nobility was
1. Macgregor Knox, "Mass Politics and Nationalism as Military Revolution: The French Revolution and after." in The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300-2050, ed. Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray (New York:

Bibliography: Alexander, Don W. "French Military Problems in Counterinsurgent Warfare in Northeastern Spain, 1808-1813" (paper presented at the Command and General Staff College, Fort Lee, Virginia, February 10, 2014). Huber, Thomas M. "The Rise of Napoleon" (paper presented at the Command and General Staff College, Fort Lee, Virginia, February 6-7, 2014). Knox, Macgregor, "Mass Politics and Nationalism as Military Revolution: The French Revolution and After." In The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300-2050, 57-73. Edited by Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Lynn, John A. "Nations in Arms." in The Cambridge History of Warfare, 189-216. Edited by Geoffrey Parker. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Paret, Peter, "Napoleon and the Revolution in War." In The Makers of Modern Strategy, 123- 142. Edited by Peter Paret. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.