Finding the Hinge: The Western Way of War and the Elusive Search for Victory

Journal Edition

‘La Garde recule!’ The unbelievable news spread like wildfire through the ranks of the French army... [which] stood momentarily aghast. Sensing his opportunity, Wellington waved his hat, and 40 000 Allied troops, led by Vivian and Vandeleur, swept forward from Mont-St-Jean with a mighty cheer and flung themselves against the dazed ranks of the spellbound Armée du Nord. A moment later, the cohesion of the French army snapped, and with cries of ‘Sauvé qui peut’ and ‘Trahison!’ unit after unit dissolved into a horde of undisciplined fugitives.¹

- The Campaigns of Napoleon

David Chandler

This moment, sometime after eight o’clock on the evening of 18 June 1815, has come down to us as one of the quintessentially decisive moments of conflict. Throughout the day, the battle of Waterloo had swung in the balance, as assault after assault was unleashed against a thin and weakening British line. Indeed, if the fury of the Guard had been directed at that same point just an hour earlier, the attack may well have penetrated the Allied centre and decided the battle the other way.

Napoleon had earlier ignored Marshal Ney’s desperate appeals for reinforcements (‘More troops! Where do you expect me to get them from? Do you want me to make some?’²), because his subordinate had already squandered too many soldiers in futile onslaughts against Wellington’s position. Instead, the Emperor gave the Iron Duke the hour that he so desperately needed in order to rush forward reinforcements in an attempt to shore up his centre. The attacking French columns drifted to their left; a quick-thinking Colonel (Colborne, of the 52nd) threatened their flanks; and suddenly the redcoats of the British Guard rose up from the ground, opening a rapid musketry that tore through the French ranks.

The dense French columns could not deploy, nor charge through the fatal hail of lead coming from sixty paces to their front. The front row shuddered as the lead balls smashed into heads and bodies. The second rank could not move forward. It is difficult to imagine the horror that the French soldiers experienced in two dense ‘close columns of grand divisions’ (frontages of about eighty men). Unable to advance without clambering over the bodies of fallen comrades, they endured the carnage wrought by lead shot unleashed at close range.

As the Guard broke to flee, so too did the hopes of Napoleon and his Grande Armée. The battle snapped the spirit of any serious resistance to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. A few further sharp skirmishes occurred over ensuing days and weeks, but the inexorable progress of the Allies continued unchecked. The willpower that had nourished defiance collapsed, and the destruction of Napoleon was, finally, complete.

So was this moment, on the slope before Mont-St-Jean, really the climacteric that inexorably decided Napoleon’s future? The myth suggests it was, because Wellington’s victory turned on that instant, and the defeat of the Imperial Guard. This was the hinge that decided the battle, campaign and war.

What if this supposedly seminal event had never occurred? What if, for example, the columns beating the pas de charge had actually moved forward an hour earlier, when Ney had originally requested his reinforcements? At that time two batteries of French artillery were successfully blasting holes in the centre of the thinning Allied line. Wellington himself had been forced to ride in front of some wavering Brunswick battalions in order to keep them steady, while exhausted soldiers streamed to the rear, unable and unwilling to fight any longer.

A decisive charge then could well have scattered the thin British screen masking the high ground, allowing the French to seize the ridge, the centre and, with it, the key to Wellington’s position. A lucky assault might also have caught the Duke himself, depriving the Allies of one of their best generals. After all, just two days earlier the Prussian General Buchler had been trapped beneath his dying horse as French Cuirassiers galloped past him at the battle of Ligny. Earlier on the 18th, Wellington’s brother-in-law had lost his leg, which was blown off by a cannon-ball as he was riding beside the Duke.

‘By God, I’ve lost my leg!’

‘My God, sir, so you have,’ replied the Duke.³

Yet could a victory at Mont St Jean have saved Napoleon? Probably not. The mauling of the Prussians at Ligny had resulted in their defeat, but not their destruction. They were still ready to fight. It was, in fact, the arrival of the Germans on Napoleon’s southeast flank at Waterloo at the critical moment that had caused the delay in launching the Guard’s assault against the British positions. Wellington, too, had other forces that were not committed to the battle, because he had failed to anticipate exactly where his opponent’s main blow would fall. Because of this, the exhausted French forces would have been unable to convert their victory into the subsequent total destruction of the allied army. Perhaps not in June, but certainly by August or September, Napoleon would, eventually, have met his Waterloo.

The point is that France’s strategic defeat had already been assured, well before the battle, because of a lack of material, men and money with which to prosecute the war. On 18 June France stood alone against not just England, but also Prussia, Austria, Russia, Sweden and an assortment of other countries. Large armies were already moving east to threaten the French frontier while their monarchs declared themselves implacably opposed to any deal with Napoleon. The strategic situation was worse than bleak and explains why the French army dissolved so suddenly.

Victory Beyond the Battlefield

Normally, we focus on the particular tactics of the battlefield to work out why one side is successful and the other is vanquished. That is the way to analyse the success of the British line against the French column. However, that does not tell us why the rest of the army broke and fled so rapidly. In order to understand the reason for the French defeat, we need to distinguish between tactical (or battlefield) success and the strategic reasons that wars are won and lost.

Looking back, we can determine that the Emperor’s fate had already been sealed by 1813, at Leipzig in the ‘Battle of the Nations’. During this battle, which stretched over four days in October, it became obvious that France could no longer support a military force powerful enough to dominate Europe. The material resources necessary to fuel the French attempt did not match the vaulting ambition of the Emperor. He had been unable to replace the losses of his Russian campaign the year before—there were simply not enough men in France.

When the Emperor sailed back to France to raise his standard again in 1815, it was obvious that the scales were heavily weighed against him. Only a daring campaign, designed to grasp a rapid succession of victories, could provide the moral advantage that might force the coalition to the negotiating table. One lost battle would be decisive, for the Emperor had always staked everything on the verdict of combat.

As the Guard abandoned the forward slopes of Mont-St-Jean and fled, the impossibility of defeating the Allies in battle sank in. The rout of the elite was fiercely rammed home, like a musket ball slammed against the bottom of the barrel, as the triumphant British line advanced.

Victory is a Complex Equation

A modern historical writer might quibble with David Chandler’s broad-brush description of the last moments of the battle. What, exactly, does Chandler mean when he claims ‘the cohesion of the French Army snapped’? Could one literally hear a crack flying through the smoke-filled air as formations fell apart?

In his account of Waterloo, John Keegan places far more emphasis on the real experiences of individual soldiers.⁴ After all, he says, these are the people whose actions determine the outcome of the conflict. He alerts us to the obvious fact that the reality of battle is vastly different for each individual participating in the event. The encounters of Captain Mercer (Royal Horse Artillery) on that day differed significantly from those of a rifleman (Sharpe, of the 95th) or, indeed, a French conscript such as the novelist Stendhal. Three accounts, all of the same battle, vary so widely that it is difficult to believe that all three men participated in the same event. Multiply these individual accounts by nearly 200 000, and we have the babble of accounts that describe what really happened on that day.

The key to reconciling these and other eyewitness accounts of Waterloo is not just that they describe events within the same five square kilometre location in southern Belgium on one day in 1815. It is, rather, that everyone present on that day accepted that, between eight and nine that night, the Imperial Guard was defeated. This was the moment of decision that ended the Napoleonic era and exiled the Emperor to St Helena. Nearly two decades of war, which had irrevocably changed society and power in Europe, had drawn to a close.

The rout of the Guard provided the signal that the army’s morale had broken. Napoleon’s strategic defeat had already been assured by the resurrection of the grand coalition arrayed against him. The fleeing bearskins, tumbling down the hill, were a sign that hope had finally deserted the Emperor’s Eagles. At that moment, the soldiers abandoned their training and discipline and the bonds that linked the individuals to their units did indeed snap apart.

The Western Way of War

The shattering of the Guard also explains why there was no further significant resistance as the Allies moved towards Paris. The battle of morale had been lost at Waterloo—finally and irrevocably. Waterloo is the epitome of the so-called ‘Western way’ of war—all resources focused on a specific moment in a conflict, a terrible clash of arms, and then total agreement about the result.

The idea of a specifically Western way in warfare is relatively new. Victor Davis Hanson has become particularly identified with this analysis of fighting, which suggests that Greek city–states effectively created a new form of war—one that placed decisive battle at the apex of military endeavour.

This theory has obvious appeal. Every young lieutenant is taught to achieve victory by directing his effort at a vital point, after which remaining resistance can be crushed. This is the focus of everyone in the military, from section commander to commanding general. Self-evidently, the aim of war is victory, and only decisive action aimed at destroying the enemy’s capability to fight can guarantee that result.

Napoleon was a pre-eminent practitioner of this style of warfare. His great campaigns are remembered to this day for their brilliance and ability to create these decisive moments. He possessed a remarkable capacity to anticipate the critical point in battle, striking fiercely and leaving his opponents stunned and reeling before being defeated in detail. So why did such a brilliant proponent of the Western style of warfighting fail?

The pink answer-sheets (so beloved of staff college solutions) suggest that the factors leading to victory can be distilled into simple explanations. Base your answer on particular principles of war, shape it to take account of factors such as time and location, add just a touch of ‘wow’, and the Directing Staff should be impressed. However, determining the causes of success or failure for a nation at war is not as simple. Grasping for easy answers risks the wrong conclusions being drawn. The more all embracing the solution appears, the greater the danger is that the answer being provided is actually seriously, even fundamentally, flawed.

Napoleon in Russia

We can learn far more about success in war by examining broader strategic factors than ascribing everything to a decisive moment of tactical judgment.

In a conversation with Caulaincourt shortly before his recall to Paris, the Tsar said: ‘if the Emperor Napoleon decides to make war, it is possible, even probable, that we shall be defeated, assuming that we fight. But that will not mean that he can dictate peace. The Spaniards have frequently been defeated; and they are not beaten, nor have they surrendered. Moreover, they are not so far away from Paris as we are, and have neither our climate nor our resources to help them. We shall take no risks. We have plenty of space; and our standing army is well organised... your Frenchman is brave, but long sufferings and a hard climate wear down his resistance. Our climate, our winter, will fight on our side.’ This statement proved amazingly prophetic.⁵

Before dismissing the Tsar’s warfighting techniques as characteristically Oriental, it is worth remembering that this conversation with Caulaincourt was conducted in perfect French—the normal language of the Russian court. Napoleon was undoubtedly the pre-eminent practitioner of the operational Art of War of his time. Nevertheless, his failure in Russia stemmed from an inability to understand that converting tactical victory into something more substantial requires much more than just brilliance on the field of battle.

Tsar Alexander destroyed the logic of Napoleon’s search for decisive battle. He insisted that no battle could be conclusive, because the war would go on. Napoleon’s war aim was always total conquest; whereas Alexander only needed to deny his enemy victory in order to win. The Emperor invaded on 22 June, crossing the river Niemen and marching to Smolensk. Although he brushed aside opposition, the Russians denied the French the decisive battle that Napoleon so desperately wanted until the invaders reached Borodino, at the very gates of Moscow itself.

Neither side displayed any finesse in that battle. It was a drawn-out slugging match. When it finished, Napoleon had won and the route to the Russian capital lay open. From that moment of military triumph onwards, reality did not match the script dictated by the Emperor. The Tsar played for time, spinning out negotiations while his armies (and Cossacks) circled the French. Napoleon vacillated, sitting in the burnt-out Russian capital (a fire had consumed three quarters of the wooden buildings of the city), as the winter drew closer. Time became his nemesis, stalking every moment. The Russians still refused to come to terms, even favourable ones proffered by the Emperor. The French could not force the Tsar to sue for peace.

Soon, Napoleon began his retreat. The clear skies turned dark with autumn rains, and fordable streams turned into raging torrents. On 3 November, snow flurries gusted around the greatcoats of the retreating soldiers. The remnants of what had once been the largest army that Europe had ever seen struggled across the Niemen at the beginning of 1813. Fewer than one in six survived. This was a catastrophe from which the Emperor was never to recover. Napoleon’s forces were devastated, and yet he had won a series of battlefield victories both on the way to Moscow and during the retreat. At the heart of the disaster was a blunder of perception. Napoleon thought that success on the battlefield would bring victory, whereas the only thing his victories actually achieved was success on the battlefield.

It is worth remembering these events when we consider the validity of the strategy of seeking out a decisive battle. If battle is to accomplish anything, both sides must agree to accept the result. By simply ignoring the obvious vital ground—his capital—the Tsar deprived Napoleon’s battle-winning tactics of their objective. The promise of decisive battle proved illusory.

Conclusion: The Continuing Validity of the 'Western Way of War'?

Strategic triumph is based on much more than just the search for decisive battle. Material superiority, morale, and tactics suited to the struggle are far more important than any supposed Western cultural practice. The problems of a strategy that relies on decisive battle are being horrifically demonstrated, day after day, in Iraq.

The announced objective of the war was depriving Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. This aim was achieved by military means in an operation of stunning efficiency. Unfortunately, the mission was not quite that simple. The destruction of a regime can be brought about by military means with a degree of rapidity and precision. That is what happened between seven and eight o’clock at night on the battlefield of Waterloo. It is also what occurred in the period between the beginning of the ground offensive against Iraq and the fall of Baghdad. In both cases straightforward military objectives were identified and achieved with a directness that appears to prove the continuing validity of the ‘Western Way of War’.

The battle for Iraq was won, yet the fact that there is still conflict and turmoil inside the country, with large swathes of territory under only nominal central government control, does not bode well for the future. Even if the mission has been accomplished, the war is continuing. The art of strategy is more than just arranging the defeat of the enemy in battle. Sometimes it is necessary to avoid battle in order to achieve victory. That is the case for the insurgent, who wins by not losing, while the government loses if it does not win.

In Iraq, the continuing dominance of the ‘Western’ methods of warfighting was conclusively demonstrated in the first weeks of the Second Gulf War. The United States rapidly destroyed the Iraqi Army and swept it from the field. It was a complete triumph; no formed body of troops opposed them. Soon the US Army found and captured Saddam Hussein, hiding at the bottom of a hole in a little hut. It had been a classic victory in the Western style. However, it is now clear that the government in Baghdad does not control large parts of the country. Inability to bring a stable and sovereign form of government to Iraq will be perceived as a US failure, no matter how successful the American Army was in battle.

Indeed, one is reminded of the now-famous exchange between US Army Colonel Harry Summers and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tu. Back in Vietnam in 1974 as part of a US delegation attempting to resolve the status of Americans listed as missing in action, Summers had remarked to the North Vietnamese Colonel, ‘You know you never beat us on the battlefield’, to which Tu responded, ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant’.⁶

The aim of war is victory, but that is not the same as asserting that the aim of battle is decision. The Iraqi insurgents know they have no hope of defeating the US forces in battle, but they still think that they can win. They understand the limitations of conventional forces. Ordinary Iraqis do not have to support them for the guerrilla war to be successful. Society needs peace if it is to function. If the United States cannot provide a public sphere with a secure space in which to operate, it will have failed, and so will the strategy of searching for decisive battle.