I’ve searched and searched and can’t find the answer this these questions in a book: When Napoleon had returned to Paris after escaping from Elba 1)Why wasn’t his armee strong enough to help him hold onto France, at least? After all, everyone hailed him in all the towns he passed through on the way to the capital. Many contemporary accounts report seeing shop keepers taking down the fleur-de-lises that they had hastily added to their signs when they learned that Louis XVIII had returned, and putting back the eagles and the other symbols of Napoleon as he came through.
2) Why DID they hail him anyway, why such joy when he returned, when he had had so many of their class of people killed by throwing them at Wellington and Blucher and everybody else before Waterloo even, yet?
3) Then the biggest question of all: He was on his way to those two frigates that the government that came in between the fled Louis XVIII’s government and the returned-later Louis XVIII’s government WANTED Napoleon to escape. So why didn’t he succeed in escaping and going to America?
If I understand your first question the answer is that he was fighting against a coalition of several countries, while he only had one army and that it was not the same after so many years of wars.
The second answer would be that under Napoleon France was a great power and under Louis 16 they were just a defeated country. The return of Napoleon was a return of the greatness of France and also the ideals of the French revolution.
I have no idea about the third part.
don willard wrote:
Because, during the 100 Days, Napoleon wasn’t fighting just the British or the Austrians or the Prussians or the Russians alone, he was fighting them all at the same time. Napoleon landed in France on March 1. By May, there were two British and Prussian armies in Belgium and Austrian and Russian armies were on the march for France. Napoleon’s one hope, and it was a long, long shot, was to destroy the armies of Wellington and Blucher and then deal with the Austrians and Russians. This strategy pretty much dictated that the battles would be fought in France or on its nearby borders.
A more indirect reason is that Napoleon’s enemies had ample time to learn to cope with French tactics. A good case can be made that by at least 1812, Napoleon did not possess the decisive superiority in tactics and weapons that enabled his early victories.
A monarchy imposed by foreign powers after sixteen years of non-monarchy, republic and empire, is bound to be unpopular. Even so, Louis XVIII didn’t do much to woo the army, particularly its commanders before Napoleon’s return. It’s fairer to say it was the army that hailed Napoleon’s return more than the population at large.
Andrew Warinner
One of the ways the Coalition(s) “cracked” the Napoleon code was by going to great lengths to avoid Napoleon himself in the field–he may be one of the best tactical leaders ever in addition to his strategic genius. The Allies concentrated their efforts against units which were of course under the command of the Emperor, but not near enough for him to assume control from the local battlefield commander.
Which brings up the question of Waterloo. Napoleon was there. Why did the French lose when they had so many advantages?
Many people think it was because Napoleon had diahrreah. Whatever the reason, Napoleon deferred to Marshal Ney on the battlefield that day, and bought himself a one-way ticket to St. Helena.
Sofa King wrote:
What advantages?
Napoleon was outnumbered by Wellington’s and Blucher’s combined armies. The Austrian and Russian armies were poised to invade France. Many of Napoleon’s commanders were of uncertain loyalty, aware that they would pay a price if Napoleon lost, in Ney’s case, it earned him a firing squad.
Worse still, Napoleon had to destroy, not merely defeat, Wellington’s army and drive it away from Blucher to have any hope of success. This allowed Wellington to fight a defensive battle on ground of his choosing and doomed Napoleon to a head-on attack on Wellington with no room for maneuver and reliance on a subordinate to keep Blucher out of the fight. Long odds for any campaign and Napoleon didn’t enhance them by his handling of the battle.
Andrew Warinner
Napoleon’s objective was to prevent his enemies from joining their forces and to beat them all individually. He very nearly did this in Belgium to the Prussian and the force led by Wellington which was made up mostly of Dutch and English.
It is important to understand that the French army at Waterloo was not the force which had run roughshod over Europe. Made up of young and unenthusaistic conscripts it was poorly trained and equiped.
It is also important to understand that Napoleon was in fact out numbered. The French had 125,000 troops while oposed to him were the Prussians with 125,000 while Wellington commanded 90,000.
Attacking between the two armys the plan was to defeat them in detail preventing them from joing together which was the allied plan. The British managed to delay the French at Quatre Bra while the Prussians were defeated at Ligny. Wellington then eneacted a plan which had been prepared some time before, for the two armys to concentrate at Waterloo.
Napoleon belived that the Prussians were a spent force and divided his army on the assuption that the Prussians were retreating and unable to participate in another battle. The British/Dutch force massed at Waterloo and fought a delaying action against the French while waiting for the Prussians to arive which they did late in the afernoon. By this time the French had already spent much of their energy by repeated and fruitless frontal attacks. In a last ditch attempt the Old Guard were thrown at the Britsh line and were repulsed. The sprit of the French army broken and they fled.
At the time it was assumed that this was not the end. Many at Waterloo assumed that there would be another battle in the next few days. Naploeon talked of raising another army but in the end he was rejected by his own politicians who did not want another dictatorship. Naploeon abidicated and declared his son as Emperor but the Prussian enterd Paris a few weeks later followed by Louis XVIII.
Napoleon had a frigate ready and waiting to take him to America but he dismissed the idea as being not fit for an Emporor.