Napoleon

Conall Cernach · 04-09-2019 9:30pm

storker wrote: »

I'd heard of O'Meara a few times but didn't know anything about him. I'm currently reading Adam Zamoyski's biography of Napoleon which is good so far, even though he hasn't even got to Toulon yet. Zamoyski's "1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow" is excellent, and a must-read for anyone interested in the 1812 campaign in Russia.

While we're on the subject of Irish connections...Napoleon's Irish Legion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Legion

The image shows two members of the Irish Legion in Spain 1810-1812, on the left is a volltiguer (light infantry) and on the right a grenadier (elite infantry). The regiment was designated as light infantry, so strictly speaking the grenadier should be a carabinier, but maybe they didn't use the standard terms for foreign regiments.

I think (I may be talking bollox) the French line infantry battalions had a voltiguer and grenadier company included in them.

storker · 04-09-2019 11:53pm

Conall Cernach wrote: »

I think (I may be talking bollox) the French line infantry battalions had a voltiguer and grenadier company included in them.

You're quite correct. But the French light infantry battalion (post-1808) also had a voltigeur company, four chasseur companies and one carabinier (elite) company, whereas in the line battalions it was voltigeurs, four fusilier companies and one of elite grenadiers. According to the histories the Irish Legion was designated a light regiment so it's odd to see it using line terms for its companies. But then there were a number of naming oddities during that era, so it shouldn't really be surprising.

Also, like the French light infantry regiments, the Irish Legion wore jacket and breeches of the same colour. That said, I've seen one illustration of an Irish Legion soldier in white breeches with green jacket. It's enough to give you a headache, even though it's the uniforms that are one of the big attractions of the period...

The Rape of Lucretia · 05-09-2019 12:06am

Napoleon was pretty much Hitler without the antisemitism.
Worse really. Hitler had some political motivation, however misguided, for the German people. Napoleon was just out for self aggrandisement, wealth, and despite Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and the French Revolution, worked pretty quickly to put himself back in the position of all powerful monarch/emperor. A supperb and unscrupulous opportunist. Plus handing out the rest of Europe that he could get his hands on to his relations. An utterly despicable maniac.

storker · 05-09-2019 12:27am

odyssey06 wrote: »

Based purely on the TV series Sharpe, Napoleon forgot the cardinal rule ... kill Sean Bean ☺

One does not simply kill Sean Bean.

Oh, wait...

Tony EH · 05-09-2019 6:17am

odyssey06 wrote: »

Based purely on the TV series Sharpe, Napoleon forgot the cardinal rule ... kill Sean Bean ☺

It didn't Joffrey any good in the end though.

tabby aspreme · 05-09-2019 7:42am

Was his surrender the beginning of, Small Man Syndrome

blinding · 05-09-2019 8:10am

archer22 wrote: »

If you think Frenchmen can't fight, then you need to read up on the french Charlemagne Division that served in the German army during world war two.

They were the most ferocious fighters in the Battle of Berlin.

Had they a whole lot of choice at that stage it was either suicide in battle / suicide / shot later :eek:

blinding · 05-09-2019 8:12am

branie2 wrote: »

The UK would be ruled by France

If Brexit is not completed The French and Germans will have won Waterloo this time .

storker · 05-09-2019 9:19am

blinding wrote: »

If Brexit is not completed The French and Germans will have won Waterloo this time .

It's a win either way. If Brexit is stopped, then the EU avoids the economic upheaval that goes with it and the ongoing distraction of the trade deal talks that will follow. In the other hand, the EU doesn’t need an obnoxious, rattle-throwing UK still in the tent urinating all over the sleeping bags and generally behaving like the kid in class who doesn’t want to learn, but doesn’t want anyone else to learn either.

blinding · 05-09-2019 9:25am

storker wrote: »

It's a win either way. If Brexit is stopped, then the EU avoids the economic upheaval that goes with it and the ongoing distraction of the trade deal talks that will follow. In the other hand, the EU doesn’t need an obnoxious, rattle-throwing UK still in the tent urinating all over the sleeping bags and generally behaving like the kid in class who doesn’t want to learn, but doesn’t want anyone else to learn either.

The British must go their own way . Its the only thing that works for them .

Franz Von Peppercorn II · 05-09-2019 9:25am

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

We'd all be absolute tossers. Despised throughout the developed world.

Although, if he didnt surrender there, knowing their penchant for cheese eating and surrendering, it would have come sooner rather than later.

One way to know a total idiot is that phrase.

Funny it comes, this idea that for French surrender, from WWII. Obviously France didn’t lose in WWI. However France did lose in WWII as the Nazis rolled in but there was another army there which high tailed it to Dunkirk, their flank defended by the French. Dunkirk, an inglorious rout was turned into a success story while the French were caricatured as the only ones that surrendered.

odyssey06 · 05-09-2019 9:44am

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

One way to know a total idiot is that phrase.
Funny it comes, this idea that for French surrender, from WWII. Obviously France didn’t lose in WWI. However France did lose in WWII as the Nazis rolled in but there was another army there which high tailed it to Dunkirk, their flank defended by the French. Dunkirk, an inglorious rout was turned into a success story while the French were caricatured as the only ones that surrendered.

The British army had 13 divisions. The French had 93. They were the primary Western Allied land army, as the British were the primary air and sea power. Primary responsibility for the defeat in 1940 lies with the French. Even if there was no BEF, the French should not have collapsed as they did.

I don't know what would have been accomplished by the surrender of the BEF, when it was clear the battle had been lost by the Allies.

Countries need myths like Dunkirk in the middle of an existential war. Ask the French who liberated Paris or what the French resistance did and compare versus the reality.

Tony EH · 05-09-2019 9:45am

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

One way to know a total idiot is that phrase.

Funny it comes, this idea that for French surrender, from WWII. Obviously France didn’t lose in WWI. However France did lose in WWII as the Nazis rolled in but there was another army there which high tailed it to Dunkirk, their flank defended by the French. Dunkirk, an inglorious rout was turned into a success story while the French were caricatured as the only ones that surrendered.

^
Sometimes propaganda works.

topper75 · 05-09-2019 9:53am

endacl wrote: »

We would have Napoleon Boots though. That'd be cool.

Putting on your nappies to go out? Nah.

I'm part of the way through a big dirty fat book on the man. He had a bit of luck - but some man for one man. Nobody can deny that. That French army was going nowhere without him. With him, they went everywhere.

He only had a few feckups:

Not knowing when to quit in Russia
Not trying to match the Brit navy
Changing what had always worked at Waterloo (separated for travel, join for fight)

Franz Von Peppercorn II · 05-09-2019 10:07am

odyssey06 wrote: »

The British army had 13 divisions. The French had 93. They were the primary Western Allied land army, as the British were the primary air and sea power. Primary responsibility for the defeat in 1940 lies with the French. Even if there was no BEF, the French should not have collapsed as they did.

I don't know what would have been accomplished by the surrender of the BEF, when it was clear the battle had been lost by the Allies.

Countries need myths like Dunkirk in the middle of an existential war. Ask the French who liberated Paris or what the French resistance did and compare versus the reality.

The fact remains that both armies lost, and one fled, and it is the country of the fleeing army that caricatures the other as cheese eating surrender monkeys. (I know this is from the Simpsons but the idea was there before)

storker · 05-09-2019 10:44am

blinding wrote: »

The British must go their own way . Its the only thing that works for them .

Except when they're the ones in control of the others.

odyssey06 · 05-09-2019 10:54am

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

The fact remains that both armies lost, and one fled, and it is the country of the fleeing army that caricatures the other as cheese eating surrender monkeys. (I know this is from the Simpsons but the idea was there before)

Fled? Fleeing army? There's a bit of cheese eating surrender monkey to that characterization.

Not sure what you are seriously expecting the BEF to have done differently once it was clear the battle was lost, and how it would have helped eventual Allied victory.

Tony EH · 05-09-2019 11:13am

odyssey06 wrote: »

Fled? Fleeing army? There's a bit of cheese eating surrender monkey to that characterization.

Not sure what you are seriously expecting the BEF to have done differently once it was clear the battle was lost, and how it would have helped eventual Allied victory.

I don't think that that is Franz's point.

Not trying to speak for him, but I think he means that while one nation gets tarred with being "surrender monkeys" for their defeat at the hands of an enemy, the other gets away with it, because they used propaganda to turn a crushing defeat into a bastardised "victory".

odyssey06 · 05-09-2019 11:19am

Tony EH wrote: »

I don't think that that is Franz's point.
Not trying to speak for him, but I think he means that while one nation gets tarred with being "surrender monkeys" for their defeat at the hands of an enemy, the other gets away with it, because they used propaganda to turn a crushing defeat into a bastardised "victory".

Ok good point, although I don't think the other army would have gotten away in the long run with the propaganda stunt had they not returned to the scenes of their defeat and this time won (albeit as junior partner to the Americans for Round II).

blinding · 05-09-2019 12:35pm

storker wrote: »

Except when they're the ones in control of the others.

50% + 1 will get any country out of the Uk even England

:eek:

Napoleon

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