The Art Of War By Sun Tzu

The year is 1815 June, 18 the balance of Europe hangs on the fate of this battle. As we all know this is one of the most important battles of the war with so much at stake. If Napoleon is victorious, it will greatly injure the resistance. But if the loses the campaign is basically over. Napoleon is a very strong leader, on the battlefield with his men. “His presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men.”~Wellington. The battle is taking place near Brussels. If Napoleon can gain this ground it will give him a very good standpoint. Wellington was very smart in his positioning. He knew he was outnumbered so he gave his men good cover (in barns and in corn fields) this made them much harder targets. Wellington also knew if he

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is remembered as one of the greatest minds in military history. His revolutionary approach to warfare changed the course of history and the principles which governed his style of leadership are still valued today. Although he had an illustrious career of over 25 years and expanded the French Empire from Portugal to Russia, his reign came to end at the hands' of his enemies. The Battle of Waterloo was Napoleon's last stand as a military commander and will be examined for his use of the principles of the operations process. Napoleon failed to implement these activities effectively and is ultimately responsible for the loss of the battle. Napoleon was able to lead his men, but was unable to overcome his

Sun Tzu know every humans is greedy when there is small advantages in front of them, this kind of nature makes them slack off their spirit or become less alert and lead them making the wrong decision. In the battle, before we lure the enemy to move with benefits, we need to know what exactly enemy desired in the battle, Thus, Sun Tzu said “Know yourself and your enemy well, you will never be defeated”. According to Sun Tzu, every war must be studies and examined thoroughly, because the impact of war bring to the country is huge, it consumed a lot of resources, no matter human resources, food supply, weapons and etc. Hence, after we know enemy, it is easy entice them by giving away something they definitely want to have or creating circumstances that makes them feels comfortable. When the enemy feel they took advantages or when they feel comfortable, this is the opportunity to ambush them.

To begin, in Art of War by Sun Tzu, he refers to war as a designed strategy. He claims, ‘To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy is the acme of skill.’ (Tzu, 1943, p. 79). This means that a well-designed strategy is to initiate the fuse with the enemy with a non-violent stunt like giving urine to the enemy instead of wine (Tzu, 1943, p. 79). This enrages them causing recklessly thinking and they make the first move to attack and the defendant can be prepared to weaken the attack and defence systems by eliminating the forces. Their defence is weakened and the enemy becomes easy to conquer and overthrow without any more physical acts.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia was a major factor in his downfall. In 1812, Napoleon, whose alliance with Alexander I had disintegrated, launched an invasion into Russia that ended in a disastrous retreat from Moscow. Thereafter, all of Europe, including his own allies, Austria and Prussia, united against him. Although he continued to fight, the odds he faced were impossible. In April 1814, Napoleon’s own marshals refused to continue the struggle and stepped down from their positions. During the actual Russian campaign, there were many key factors that greatly impacted his downfall.

Prevalent public perception of the invasion usually places much of the blame for the failure on random chance or Napoleon misinterpreting the Russian climate. This is a convenient narrative to simplify a heroes downfall but disregards much of the strategic planning of the Russian side. As stated previously the lack of supporting the Continental blockade greatly disrespect Napoleon’s authority and made him quickly and aggressively jump into action. Through overwhelming force Napoleon hoped to intimidate the Tzar into immediately agreeing to his demands or corner him into one pitch engagement which would leave the Russian leadership in an unfavourable negotiation position due to weakness. For this reason Napoleon knew speed was of the utmost

Napoleon began executing his plan by attacking the Prussian centre and waited for Ney to arrive. Napoleon received a message from Ney that he could not beat Wellington and could not reinforce him so he sent a message back to requisition D’Erlons corps from Ney. As the battle progressed, D’Erlon was in sight of Ligny but Ney called D’Erlon back to reinforce his battle instead. As a result D’Erlon never arrived at Ligny so Napoleon could not execute his plan and the Prussian army was allowed to retreat, although in a disorganised state. Napoleon lost the chance to win the campaign at Ligny but by keeping Wellington and Blucher from meeting up, he still had a strong chance of a victory at Waterloo. Although Napoleon did not carry out his plan, he had forced the Prussian army to withdraw and in the opposite direction to Wellington. Napoleons overarching objective of keeping the allied armies apart was still succeeding. However, he assumed the Prussians would retreat east leaving just Wellington to fight. Blucher in fact convinced his troops to retreat north so they could still help Wellington . This assumption was Napoleons first major mistake as it meant he deployed his forces at Waterloo to fight only one army and from the moment Blucher

Napoleon’s plan to deceive the Coalition Forces had begun weeks prior to the Battle at Austerlitz with the defeat of a major Austrian army under the command of General Karl Baron Mack von Leiberich at Ulm, in Bavaria. After 10 days of constant attacks and artillery bombardment, General Mack surrendered to Napoleon at the town of Ulm. Losing an estimated 42,000 men, Napoleon struck a huge blow to the Austrian forces that would later have a severe impact on the Battle of Austerlitz by denying much need troops to the combined Russian/Austrian forces. (Charles River Editors, 2013) Once word of the loss at Ulm had made its way to the Russian reinforcements General Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, commander of the Russian forces found himself in a difficult situation.

Napoleons’ plans to deceive the allied forces had begun weeks prior to the Battle at Austerlitz with the defeat of a major

In 1821 the Russians denied their support for Napoleon’s Continental System that he had put in place as a means to block British trade in Europe. Napoleon immediately penetrated Russia, but quickly learned that defeating them would be much more laborious than he had initially anticipated (History.com Staff, 2009). The Russians had developed a clever tactic, where they would retreat and sabotage everything along their path whenever Napoleon’s army would advance. As a result, Napoleon and his men were led deeper into Russia, but found themselves with few supplies. Winter was rapidly approaching, which contributed to the heavy casualties that were experienced on both battlefronts (Dugdale, P.T., 2006). Shortly after Napoleon’s retreat, he was defeated and sent into exile by European powers. Elba, an island just off of the British coast was where he would stay until his escape back to France. Once back in France, he ruled once again for 100 days, but with each passing day Europe forced Napoleon further away from his glory and prestige (McLynn, F., 1997). Napoleon continued to put up a fight, but eventually at the Battle of Waterloo he was finally defeated and sent into exile once again. He was no longer sent to Elba but instead to Saint Helen where he would later take his last breathe. He died in 1821 at the age of just 51, and was believed to have died from stomach

Napoleon couldn't stop trying to expand his empire which ended up leading to a six year hemorrhage in Spain. He lost half a million men in Russia when

When Napoleon rose to the position of an emperor, he became the head of a huge army battalion set up by his previous predecessor. The French army was a conglomeration of loyal citizens who were aware of the cause for their engagement in warfare. They were doing the fighting out of free will and did not act as mercenaries as was the case in the larger parts of Europe. Napoleon impressed on them that they were fighting to protect the gains of their industrial revolution, which was under threat from the outside enemies, and it was a matter of patriotism rather than advancing the ideals of Napoleon as an individual. Napoleon used his wits to create the revolution ardor among those in the military. According to those in the army, the only way to express the ardor was to engage in battles making Napoleon succeed in his quest to gain more territories in Europe (Gershoy 67). It was a vital reason for the success of Napoleon, as many of his enemies did not fight to annihilate success

Napoleon returned to home to France with only about 10% of his Army still alive. He lost most of his soldiers during the Great White Death, which is one of the largest French disasters to date. Since all the coalition allies knew he was in trouble, they decided to follow him and take him out while he was down and burned out. This is when he decided to give himself up and be exiled to Elba with 1000 guards. Before he left though, he promised his men that he, “… would return when the flowers bloomed.” And that was a promise that Napoleon kept.

Napoleon’s plan to deceive the Coalition Forces had begun weeks prior to the Battle at Austerlitz with the defeat of a major Austrian army under the command of General Karl Baron Mack von Leiberich. After 10 days of constant attacks and artillery bombardment, General Mack surrendered to Napoleon at the town of Ulm. Losing an estimated 42,000 men, which struck a

Napoleons’ plans to deceive the allied forces had begun weeks prior to the Battle at Austerlitz with his defeat of a major