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Fast Iterations: How Napoleon Managed the French Army

51 points by mikey_p 16y ago

lmkg 16y ago
Interesting... he became the most renowned military commander in European history by relinquishing his command to his subordinates. In effect, he pioneered not micromanaging. Of course, there's more to it than just saying "do what you think is best" and calling it a day. Napoleon still needed to make high-level strategic decisions, he needed ensure his subordinates' individual initiative was in line with those strategic objectives (even harder if the officers are French aristocrats), and as usual he needed to completely re-invent logistics for his army to be able to take advantage of their flexibility (see also: Kanban). In a very real sense, he wasn't just a great general but invented an entirely new way of waging war.
krakensden 16y ago
There are only two posts on that blog, and they're both great. I hope he keeps it up.
kiba 16y ago
Didn't the Roman general Gaius Marius also introduced the idea of backpack? His soldiers were called Marius' Mules.
nradov 16y ago
Military analogies and examples are almost universally terrible when applied to software development (and business in general). That blog post cherry picks a few anecdotes from Napoleon's history and ignores his failure to learn from his mistakes. As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after defeating Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way." https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28formation%29#Napoleonic_Wars https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28for... Business is not war.
- defen 16y ago
  Interesting...I had not heard the quote you cite. The French did the same as always but it was by no means an easy affair: "It has been a damned serious business... Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. ... By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there." ("nice" meaning "precise"). http://books.google.com/books?id=Ni8Mc1b1ygAC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&source=bl&ots=RS7y9TPHyY&sig=b86Fqzn7D6BQFYLJZU3Y5VRgJAA&hl=en&ei=mo8BTbrOHYq6sQODnZS6CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=Ni8Mc1b1ygAC&pg=PA185&#...
- mikey_p 16y ago
  I agree that it's not a perfect analogy, and perhaps shouldn't be taken as an analogy at all. That said, I don't think that means there's nothing to be learned from what did and didn't work. It's rather similar to how I like to reference Demming's 14 points in term of how to manage any business: obviously not all apply, but many do, and you can still learn valuable philosophy from the ones that don't.
- anonymo 16y ago
  "As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after defeating Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way."" Cute, except that Waterloo was Wellington's one and only victory over Bonaparte. It was the only time they met on the battle field, and even then, Michel Ney made most of the tactical decisions (and mistakes) on that day. Remembering Napoleon for Waterloo rather than Austerlitz, Ulm and Jena would be like remembering Hannibal for Zama. The fact that his name has become synonymous with his unremarkable defeat on that day, and that Wellington, a reactionary, anti-democratic, ennobled aristocrat, is somehow looked upon with favor in this country (America), even more so than his adversary who was an ally of America, who doubled the size of our country with the Louisiana Purchase and who actually planned on settling here after his second abdication, is a testament to the lasting power of the British anti-Bonapartist propaganda industry. More books were written about Napoleon in the 19th century than about any other man, living or dead, and most English languages books on him were written by Brits, and most of those books vilified him as the Corsican Ogre, the Great Usurper and so on. Were it not for this cottage industry that sprang up during the Napoleonic Era and lingered long after, most Americans would probably still have a favorable view of Napoleon as they did during his lifetime.
HistoryInAction 16y ago
Also shows the problem of first followers in action. All of Europe got smacked around for a while by this great disrupter, but eventually, they learned from Napoleon, found some weaknesses, and then broke him in the two key battles ending the Napoleonic Wars. He couldn't maintain his 'first mover' advantage.
- thret 16y ago
  That's not the impression I got from War and Peace. Wasn't he broken by the occupation, sacking and disorderly retreat from Moscow in Winter?
- mousa 16y ago
  I would have to think some of his defeat was because France was just depleted. It had undergone what was probably the most violent couple decades in history to that point, starting with the revolution, and during his second run, there wasn't much room for error.
ojbyrne 16y ago
Napoleon was innovative, but only covering his career to 1805 sort of ignores the final punchline. Over the next ten years he was repeatedly defeated by a coalition that could field larger armies, and slowly but surely stole (or improved on) all of his innovations. Thus demonstrating the "innovator's dilemma."
- nl 16y ago
  That's not true. Napoleon repeatedly defeated larger coalitions. Battle of Austerlitz (1805): defeated the combined armies of the Austrian and Russian empire, which led to the collapse of the Third Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition) Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (1806): defeated the Prussians, which led to the collapse of the Fourth Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fourth_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fourth_Coalition) Battle of Wagram (1809): defeated the Austrian army, which collapsed the Fifth Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition) In conclusion, it wasn't larger coalitions improving on Napoleon's tactics that beat him. It was firstly the Russian winter, and secondly the superbly trained and professional British army (which used very different tactics)which first defeated his Marshals in the Peninsular campaign and then joined with the Prussians to beat him at Waterloo.
  - varjag 16y ago
    I like how whoever gets defeated in Russia always blames it on bad weather.
    - nl 16y ago
      Except for the Mongols [1][2]. [1] I guess they didn't get defeated, and the "bad Russian weather" was much better than the Mongolian weather they were used to [2] And to some extent, the Rus tribe which founded Russia. Being Vikings, they probably found the "bad Russian weather" quite reasonable, too.
nl 16y ago
This article sounds really good at a high level, but it misses an important point. Prior to the invention of the radio, lower level commanders always had to use their initiative when commanding their troops, because there was no reliable way to quickly communicate with their commanders during a battle. It's disappointing this was missed, because it's an important point: Control needs to be proportional to communication. Also: They also were taught to live off the land by hunting and foraging. This decoupled the soldiers from the slow supply caravans and allowed them to remain independent for long periods of time. The author probably should have pointed out that this tactic led to his armies in the Iberian peninsular being bled by attacks form the local population sick of having the crops stolen by "foraging" soldiers. It also led to the Russian disaster - the Russians left nothing for the French armies to forage, and so when winter came they ~all died.
- bsergean 16y ago
  100.000 out of 600.000 survived, and a lot of them were not french but from many places. They did not all died of starvation, many were killed fighting cossacks.
- hacker-gene 16y ago
  > Control needs to be proportional to communication. First time I've heard of this, and I'm pretty sure there's good insight here somewhere (I don't think I've heard it mentioned anywhere), would be great if you can expand on it.
  - nl 16y ago
    Thanks. I just made it up.. but I don't think it's anything complicated. Control should only be exerted over things where you have sufficient knowledge. In a rapidly changing environment - be it business or battle - knowledge can only come via communication. Strong centralized control can only work well in environments where communication is strong too. Otherwise decisions must be made with less knowledge than other parts of the organisation closer to the action the decision affects.
    - 16y ago
spitfire 16y ago
Napoleon practiced what is now known as Maneuver Warfare. John Boyd - the guy who originated maneuver warfare formally studied spent his life learning this stuff. Patterns of conflict was a study of 2500 years of conflict and includes Napoleons campaigns. The current startup culture of fast iteration is a very weak version of what Boyd produced. I'd advise anyone starting or running a business to read up on the subject Boyds' work will tell you what you can and cannot achieve and how to go about doing it. http://radio-weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndBusinesschesterRichardsOnBoyd.html http://radio-weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndB...
- celoyd 16y ago
  “Crew resource management” (there’s a good Wikipedia article on it) is another interesting application of Boyd’s ideas. In a nutshell, it’s the training that cockpit crews use to make decisions in quickly-changing environments like emergencies. It has the advantage of lots and lots of testing, which not all Boyd’s ideas do.
- varjag 16y ago
  Good warfare have been maneuver warfare at least since Alexander.
akharris 16y ago
Fairly interesting, but a bit surprised that he missed one of the most surprising elements of Napolean's innovations: canned food. Modern war is largely a question of logistics, and canned goods (over foraging) gave them the ability to keep food edible longer over greater distance. Of course, not even canned food could give them victory over the russian winter.
jmatt 16y ago
This is only peripherally related. But since we are on the topic of Napoleon... Charles Joseph Minard created and published a flow map of "Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812"[1]. This graphic is way ahead of it's time. It provides so much information in such a concise and clear form that it's hard to imagine that it was published in 1869. Also see more information on Tufte's website[2][3]. That is how I originally found out about it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.pn... [2] http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard [3] http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-obit http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-obit
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
cafard 16y ago
Utter and complete crock. Armies had always requisitioned food. Hunting could never supply a substantial part of an army's needs. Napoleon drew in part from lessons learned by the French while assisting the Americans during the American Revolution. Etc. etc. etc. But as business publications go, it's above average.

51 points by mikey_p 16y ago

lmkg 16y ago

Interesting... he became the most renowned military commander in European history by relinquishing his command to his subordinates. In effect, he pioneered not micromanaging. Of course, there's more to it than just saying "do what you think is best" and calling it a day. Napoleon still needed to make high-level strategic decisions, he needed ensure his subordinates' individual initiative was in line with those strategic objectives (even harder if the officers are French aristocrats), and as usual he needed to completely re-invent logistics for his army to be able to take advantage of their flexibility (see also: Kanban). In a very real sense, he wasn't just a great general but invented an entirely new way of waging war.

krakensden 16y ago

There are only two posts on that blog, and they're both great. I hope he keeps it up.

kiba 16y ago

Didn't the Roman general Gaius Marius also introduced the idea of backpack? His soldiers were called Marius' Mules.

nradov 16y ago

Military analogies and examples are almost universally terrible when applied to software development (and business in general). That blog post cherry picks a few anecdotes from Napoleon's history and ignores his failure to learn from his mistakes. As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after defeating Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way." https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28formation%29#Napoleonic_Wars https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Column_%28for... Business is not war.

defen 16y ago
Interesting...I had not heard the quote you cite. The French did the same as always but it was by no means an easy affair: "It has been a damned serious business... Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. ... By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there." ("nice" meaning "precise"). http://books.google.com/books?id=Ni8Mc1b1ygAC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&source=bl&ots=RS7y9TPHyY&sig=b86Fqzn7D6BQFYLJZU3Y5VRgJAA&hl=en&ei=mo8BTbrOHYq6sQODnZS6CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=Ni8Mc1b1ygAC&pg=PA185&#...
mikey_p 16y ago
I agree that it's not a perfect analogy, and perhaps shouldn't be taken as an analogy at all. That said, I don't think that means there's nothing to be learned from what did and didn't work. It's rather similar to how I like to reference Demming's 14 points in term of how to manage any business: obviously not all apply, but many do, and you can still learn valuable philosophy from the ones that don't.
anonymo 16y ago
"As his famed opponent Arthur Wellesley (Wellington) said after defeating Napoleon the final time: "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way."" Cute, except that Waterloo was Wellington's one and only victory over Bonaparte. It was the only time they met on the battle field, and even then, Michel Ney made most of the tactical decisions (and mistakes) on that day. Remembering Napoleon for Waterloo rather than Austerlitz, Ulm and Jena would be like remembering Hannibal for Zama. The fact that his name has become synonymous with his unremarkable defeat on that day, and that Wellington, a reactionary, anti-democratic, ennobled aristocrat, is somehow looked upon with favor in this country (America), even more so than his adversary who was an ally of America, who doubled the size of our country with the Louisiana Purchase and who actually planned on settling here after his second abdication, is a testament to the lasting power of the British anti-Bonapartist propaganda industry. More books were written about Napoleon in the 19th century than about any other man, living or dead, and most English languages books on him were written by Brits, and most of those books vilified him as the Corsican Ogre, the Great Usurper and so on. Were it not for this cottage industry that sprang up during the Napoleonic Era and lingered long after, most Americans would probably still have a favorable view of Napoleon as they did during his lifetime.

HistoryInAction 16y ago

Also shows the problem of first followers in action. All of Europe got smacked around for a while by this great disrupter, but eventually, they learned from Napoleon, found some weaknesses, and then broke him in the two key battles ending the Napoleonic Wars. He couldn't maintain his 'first mover' advantage.

thret 16y ago
That's not the impression I got from War and Peace. Wasn't he broken by the occupation, sacking and disorderly retreat from Moscow in Winter?
mousa 16y ago
I would have to think some of his defeat was because France was just depleted. It had undergone what was probably the most violent couple decades in history to that point, starting with the revolution, and during his second run, there wasn't much room for error.

ojbyrne 16y ago

Napoleon was innovative, but only covering his career to 1805 sort of ignores the final punchline. Over the next ten years he was repeatedly defeated by a coalition that could field larger armies, and slowly but surely stole (or improved on) all of his innovations. Thus demonstrating the "innovator's dilemma."

nl 16y ago
That's not true. Napoleon repeatedly defeated larger coalitions. Battle of Austerlitz (1805): defeated the combined armies of the Austrian and Russian empire, which led to the collapse of the Third Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Coalition) Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (1806): defeated the Prussians, which led to the collapse of the Fourth Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fourth_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fourth_Coalition) Battle of Wagram (1809): defeated the Austrian army, which collapsed the Fifth Coalition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Fifth_Coalition) In conclusion, it wasn't larger coalitions improving on Napoleon's tactics that beat him. It was firstly the Russian winter, and secondly the superbly trained and professional British army (which used very different tactics)which first defeated his Marshals in the Peninsular campaign and then joined with the Prussians to beat him at Waterloo.
- varjag 16y ago
  I like how whoever gets defeated in Russia always blames it on bad weather.
  - nl 16y ago
    Except for the Mongols [1][2]. [1] I guess they didn't get defeated, and the "bad Russian weather" was much better than the Mongolian weather they were used to [2] And to some extent, the Rus tribe which founded Russia. Being Vikings, they probably found the "bad Russian weather" quite reasonable, too.

nl 16y ago

This article sounds really good at a high level, but it misses an important point. Prior to the invention of the radio, lower level commanders always had to use their initiative when commanding their troops, because there was no reliable way to quickly communicate with their commanders during a battle. It's disappointing this was missed, because it's an important point: Control needs to be proportional to communication. Also: They also were taught to live off the land by hunting and foraging. This decoupled the soldiers from the slow supply caravans and allowed them to remain independent for long periods of time. The author probably should have pointed out that this tactic led to his armies in the Iberian peninsular being bled by attacks form the local population sick of having the crops stolen by "foraging" soldiers. It also led to the Russian disaster - the Russians left nothing for the French armies to forage, and so when winter came they ~all died.

bsergean 16y ago
100.000 out of 600.000 survived, and a lot of them were not french but from many places. They did not all died of starvation, many were killed fighting cossacks.
hacker-gene 16y ago
> Control needs to be proportional to communication. First time I've heard of this, and I'm pretty sure there's good insight here somewhere (I don't think I've heard it mentioned anywhere), would be great if you can expand on it.
- nl 16y ago
  Thanks. I just made it up.. but I don't think it's anything complicated. Control should only be exerted over things where you have sufficient knowledge. In a rapidly changing environment - be it business or battle - knowledge can only come via communication. Strong centralized control can only work well in environments where communication is strong too. Otherwise decisions must be made with less knowledge than other parts of the organisation closer to the action the decision affects.
  - 16y ago

spitfire 16y ago

Napoleon practiced what is now known as Maneuver Warfare. John Boyd - the guy who originated maneuver warfare formally studied spent his life learning this stuff. Patterns of conflict was a study of 2500 years of conflict and includes Napoleons campaigns. The current startup culture of fast iteration is a very weak version of what Boyd produced. I'd advise anyone starting or running a business to read up on the subject Boyds' work will tell you what you can and cannot achieve and how to go about doing it. http://radio-weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndBusinesschesterRichardsOnBoyd.html http://radio-weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/02/08/oodaAndB...

celoyd 16y ago
“Crew resource management” (there’s a good Wikipedia article on it) is another interesting application of Boyd’s ideas. In a nutshell, it’s the training that cockpit crews use to make decisions in quickly-changing environments like emergencies. It has the advantage of lots and lots of testing, which not all Boyd’s ideas do.
varjag 16y ago
Good warfare have been maneuver warfare at least since Alexander.

akharris 16y ago

Fairly interesting, but a bit surprised that he missed one of the most surprising elements of Napolean's innovations: canned food. Modern war is largely a question of logistics, and canned goods (over foraging) gave them the ability to keep food edible longer over greater distance. Of course, not even canned food could give them victory over the russian winter.

jmatt 16y ago

This is only peripherally related. But since we are on the topic of Napoleon... Charles Joseph Minard created and published a flow map of "Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812"[1]. This graphic is way ahead of it's time. It provides so much information in such a concise and clear form that it's hard to imagine that it was published in 1869. Also see more information on Tufte's website[2][3]. That is how I originally found out about it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.pn... [2] http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard [3] http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-obit http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-obit

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

cafard 16y ago

Utter and complete crock. Armies had always requisitioned food. Hunting could never supply a substantial part of an army's needs. Napoleon drew in part from lessons learned by the French while assisting the Americans during the American Revolution. Etc. etc. etc. But as business publications go, it's above average.