The Emperor on the Battlefield: Napoleon's Worth as a Military Commander

Lotzin, Felix Christoph

The Emperor on the Battlefield: Napoleon's Worth as a Military Commander

by Felix Christoph Lotzin (Author)

Business economics - Economic and Social History

53115

Summary

This book seeks to explore two working hypotheses: Firstly, that Napoleon’s alleged military superiority in terms of skill and battlefield competence over his peers can be empirically quantified and proven. Secondly, that the results of Napoleonic warfare can be predicted by applying the theory of Contest Success Functions to these battles.
To address these claims this book is organized into four sections:
Theory:
The first of the conceptual sections summarizes the theoretical underpinning behind the economical understanding of conflict. This so called ‘second approach’ and its merits are outlined and the history of these theoretical concepts is explained. Chapter three introduces the Ratio Contest Success Function (RCSF) put forth by Tullock and the Difference Contest Success Function (DCSF) employed by Hirshleifer, the concepts for predicting probabilities of success in conflict theory.
History:
The fourth chapter gives a brief report on warfare during the Napoleonic ages. A special emphasis lies on an analysis that evaluates if the key parameters have been homogenous over the time and what kind of technology was employed during these battles. The results are then compared with the demands of conflict theory. The fifth chapter then explicates the data set. The different variables that could be obtained are introduced and at last the scope of the further analysis is specified. This is done by picking the variables that can actually be used for an in-depth quantitative.
Modelling:
In the four chapters that deal with the actual modelling, the theory is applied to the historical data to yield the results we need to verify the working hypotheses. After the two different estimators used have been introduced in chapter six, the chapters seven and eight deal with utilising each of the estimators to answer these questions. The results from the estimates are interpreted and are compared in chapter nine. In addition, chapter nine attempts to weigh the explanatory value of the two approaches and places them in the historical perspective.
Résumé:
Chapter ten answers comments on Napoleon’s personal worth on the battlefield and applies the findings of the empirical work to three short case studies. The subsequent summary then merges the results of the whole study and concludes with follow-up questions for future research.

Excerpt

- 1 -

I used to say of him that his presence on the field made

the difference of forty thousand men.

Arthur Wellesley, 1. Duke of Wellington

Introduction

Though centuries have passed since the rise and fall of

Napoleon, his military performance continues to fuel

discussion among scholars of history and military science.

Scientific discourse about him and the battles and campaigns

fought during his age are extensive, nevertheless most

research on this topic can broadly be divided into two

approaches: historical and from a practical perspective

employed by military science. Without conflicting the other,

these complement one another, as they independently attempt

to explore very different aspects of Napoleonic warfare.

The first approach is the historical perspective,

practiced among many others by the likes of Blanning

Smith

. Scholars focus on the broad lines of the military

encounters and the grand strategy

as the central theme,

interpreted in light of social and cultural aspects as well. A

work of such breadth would usually be written by a historian

and would be culminating in a good descriptive impression

and an overview of most of the aspects of the Napoleonic

times. Due to the nature of historical science, empirical data

would normally only be used in a qualitative way without

employing in-depth quantitative analysis.

Moreover the

broader perspective is normally emphasized at the expense of

Blanning (1996).

Smith (2005).

In this thesis I will use the definitions of grand strategy, strategy, grand tactics

and tactics as proposed by Chandler (2001).

E. g. statements along the lines of ,he fielded more troops' or ,he had a higher

amount of artillery at his disposal'. These statements, although backed by

numbers, do not give insight into the size of the effect or the nature of it and

therefore can not qualify as quantitative analysis.

- 2 -

detailed aspects and so only statistics of the highest

importance are included so not to obscure the leitmotif of

history.

Military scientists and practitioners using the second

approach usually focus on campaigns and describe the course

of them and the important battles that took place during them.

Their work is highly detailed and covers many different

aspects of Napoleonic warfare. Logistics, infantry tactics,

cavalry attacks and artillery bombardments are explained in

great detail and their effects are scrutinised. These works

usually contain high amounts of empirical data about all the

different subjects and facets of contemporary warfare.

Nevertheless the focus is on the strategy and the tactics and

although numbers are taken into account, their exact impact is

not worked out in detail through a quantitative and

methodical analysis. Their focus on the military factors

furthermore prevents these works to give a comprehensive

view of the Napoleonic times but makes them dependent on

the general approach discussed before.

Although both approaches can be combined for a very

detailed qualitative description of Napoleonic warfare, history

and times there is an evident lack of thorough empirical

analysis of Napoleons military efficiency. Recent research in

economic science has seen an increasing number of papers,

books and theories addressing the subject of conflict from an

economical and rational choice perspective. Starting with the

analysis of `rent seeking' by Gordon Tullock, several other

important theorists

have ventured out to study the different

aspects of conflict that border both social sciences and

economics. This thesis attempts to apply their theories of

I especially owe much to the work of Hirshleifer, who studied conflicts for years

and always encouraged other economists to apply the economic theories to

other field of scientific work.

- 3 -

conflict to the battles of the Napoleonic age and to test several

assumptions derived from the so called Contest Success

Functions that have been put forth as models for the

prediction of conflict outcomes. Although these concepts have

been around for several years and sparked frequent

discussion, there are only some works that actually try to

verify these theories by applying them on actual data.

Hence this thesis seeks to explore the following two

working hypotheses: Firstly, that Napoleon's alleged military

superiority in terms of skill and battlefield competence over

his peers can be empirically quantified and proven. Secondly,

that the results of Napoleonic warfare can be predicted by

applying the theory of Contest Success Functions to these

battles.

To address these claims this paper is organized into this

introduction and four different sections, with eleven chapters

in total as follows:

Theory

The first of the conceptual sections summarizes the

theoretical underpinning behind the economical

understanding of conflict. This so called `second approach'

Interestingly, a similar approach was chosen by two research teams before. In

1962 the Research Analysis Corporation conducted a study on the Lancaster

Equations for the United States Department of Defence. [The Lancaster

Equations being early developments of Contest Success Functions there are

some similarities in the approach, especially in the use of regressions. Willard

concluded that the Lancaster Equations only had a poor predictive value for his

data. Compare Willard (1962) for further information.

The second research work is the so-called Quantitative Judgment Method

Analysis developed by Colonel Dupuy. [Dupuy(1985)] This analysis started from

a historical perspective by manually fitting curves until the conduct of a battle

could be predicted. Although this method has high value for predicting the

outcome of battles, this is only accomplished by using dozens of variables to

increase the predictive value. Although some of the curves are variants of the

Logit-Function this thesis relies on as well, the method used and the sheer

magnitude of explaining variables makes comparison only possible for small

aspects.

Hirshleifer (1994).

- 4 -

and its merits are outlined and the history of these theoretical

concepts is explained. Chapter three introduces the Ratio

Contest Success Function (RCSF) put forth by Tullock and the

Difference Contest Success Function (DCSF) employed by

Hirshleifer, the concepts for predicting probabilities of success

in conflict theory.

History

The fourth and fifth chapters are used to outline the

actual conditions during the Napoleonic wars and the data

used for this study. The focus of this part is especially what we

actually do now about these battles and how it may be used.

The fourth chapter gives a brief report on warfare during the

Napoleonic ages. A special emphasis lies on an analysis that

evaluates if the key parameters have been homogenous over

the time and what kind of technology was employed during

these battles. The results are then compared with the demands

of conflict theory. The fifth chapter then explicates the data

set. The different variables that could be obtained are

introduced and at last the scope of the further analysis is

specified. This is done by picking the variables that actually

can be used for an in-depth quantitative.

Modelling

The third part of the thesis is of especial importance, as

the focus of this work is to answer the two hypotheses by

empirical work. In the four chapters that deal with the actual

modelling, the theory is applied on the historical data to yield

the results we need to verify the working hypotheses. After the

two different estimators used have been introduced in chapter

six, the chapters seven and eight deal with utilising each of the

estimators to answer these questions. The results from the

estimates are interpreted and are compared in chapter nine. In

addition, chapter nine attempts to weigh the explanatory value

- 5 -

of the two approaches and places them in the historical

perspective.

Résumé

The last section of my thesis contains two

chapters. Chapter ten answers comments on Napoleon's

personal worth on the battlefield and applies the findings of

the empirical work on three short case studies.

The

subsequent summary then merges the results of the whole

study and concludes with follow-up questions for future

research.

The case studies then should answer if Napoleon really had the impact of

40,000 soldiers, like Wellington attributed it to him.

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I Theory

There are but two powers in the world, the sword and

the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by

the mind.

Napoleon Bonaparate

- 7 -

The Economy of Conflict The Second Approach

To understand how economist approach conflict, we

first have to master one very important concept of modern

economics, that forms the centre of economic science as we do

know it. This is the fictive homo oeconomicus. This conceptual

person takes everything into account and then tries to

maximise its utility

by deciding what to do. Possibilities can

include such trivial decision like the one between going to

work or staying at home

or between buying a car or saving

the money. In the later case the homo oeconomicus would buy

a car if he values owning and using it more than the money he

has to pay for it. We always assume that this individual would

make a rational choice, based on its assumptions about the

different possibilities. Conventional economics do know only

one method for this person to make a living: producing useful

goods or services and trade.

Although this constitutes by far

the biggest part of economic transactions it nevertheless does

not catch these in total and omits the other side of human

nature and behaviour.

Interestingly, this strict focus on producing goods

evolved only over time. The works that founded economic

science did refer quite often to a very different aspect of

economic behaviour:

"The efforts of men are utilized in two different ways:

they are directed to the production or transformation

of economic goods, or else to the appropriation of

goods produced by others." Vilfredo Pareto

The concept of utility will not be detailed here, as it is common economic

knowledge. For our uses it should be sufficient to understand utility as the

amount one does value a specific situation.

But even these decisions can be quite hard when the structural conditions are a

bit more complicated e. g. when welfare could be paid out.

Compare the definition of economics of most standard textbooks, e. g. Marshall

(1977).

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Adam Smith

and Vilfredo Pareto both made many

references to conflicts and how these shaped human

interactions and especially decisions. The merit for

reintroducing this dualism to economic acting goes to Thomas

Schelling, who in his book The Strategy of Conflict

outlined

many concepts

that nowadays are part of the standard

economic curriculum, after they for some time had been of no

importance

. Especially the game theory

profited from his

works, which mainly deal with the underlying concepts of

behaviour. Several later scientists then started to sketch out a

theory of conflict interactions. During the 1970es Tullock

"was [...] the first to employ standard analytical building

blocks [...] for dealing with conflict interactions".

By this

inventive and new approach it was for the first time possible to

conduct a thorough analysis of conflicts from an economic

perspective and to foster a better understanding of how

conflicts actually do work.

But conflict theory is not so very one sided to explain

only how conflict evolves it even does not predict that all the

time clashes have to occur. Nash-equilibriums not only include

the best amount of input for a conflict, but can explain

cooperation as well. To show how the parts of conflict theory

interact, we have to distinguish four aspects that together

explain what happens before, during and after:

Adam Smiths ,,The Wealth of Nations" cites war and conflict regularly.

Schelling (1960).

The most widely known of these is the concept of commitment, where one side

constrains the options of its adversary by binding itself.

Nevertheless these mostly ,conflict-less' times saw the development of the

Lancaster Laws, which were early special cases of the Ratio Contest Success

Function which will be discussed later.

The game theory attempts to capture behaviour in strategic situations by

mathematical terms.

Tullock (1974).

Hirshleifer (2001), p. 4.

These four aspects are presented in Hirshleifer (2001), p. 13.

- 9 -

Sources of Conflict

These can range from different preference sets up to

totally irrational reasons for conflicts, e.g. hate, distrust or

love. They are the starting point for the whole affair.

Depending on their shapes they can make conflicts more

intense or make it easy to bridge the gap and cooperate.

Because this thesis analyses the battles and their outcomes,

the sources of conflict during the Napoleonic ages are not to be

discussed here in depth. Suffice to say that there are several

brilliant books written by historians that cover these conflicts

and how they evolved.

For our analysis it is only necessary to

assume that there is conflict and that during the battles it can

not be solved by any kind of cooperation or agreement short of

a surrender, so that the battles have to be fought out.

Technology of Conflict

This category includes the analysis of the technology

actually used to fight out the conflict either in a

metaphorical way where leaflets or television campaigns could

be the technology, or when these measures are actually used to

have fights and wars. The importance of the tools used to wage

a conflict lies within the differences of them. Without

distinguishing between them, a rational choice is not possible.

Therefore it is not only necessary to differentiate among these

instruments, but for every choice it has to be considered how

to get this kind of technology, how to use it, what the costs are

and what the impact upon the conflict will be.

Amazingly it can even happen, that intense sources of conflict can ease

cooperation, e. g. when both parties involved are willing to give everything up

for the fight and both parties know this and do not want to take the chance.

Although all the books in the references should be able to shed some light on the

sources of the Napoleonic wars, especially ,,The Napoleonic Wars: Rise and Fall

of an Empire" by Barnes and Fisher (2004) gives a good first impression of

them.

- 10 -

In contrast to conflicts with diverging sources, it is not

always possible to compare conflicts them when the

technologies are not the same among them. Each set of

technology offers a unique set of choices and possibilities to

the actors. Hence different conflicts can only be compared if

some of consistency holds true for the situations that are to be

analysed. It will be of importance to have a closer look at the

technology used during the Napoleonic wars to make sure that

the battles can be compared without blurring the results.

Modelling of Conflict

The actual modelling of the conflict tries to put the

interactions during it into a theory, which most of the time is

expressed at least partially through mathematics. This is

generally a problem of "optimization on the decision-making

level",

where we are interested in how probable it is to win a

certain conflict or how big a share of the booty we can expect.

During the modelling several aspects have to be taken

into account. Technology, resources, the intensity of the

conflict all these are variables that might influence the result

and therefore have to be checked for their impact. There are

umpteen different approaches to actually modelling a conflict,

from black-box-models, where no assumptions are made

about what actually happens, to the highly complex war games

of the military, where thousands of variables are taken into

account. Small level, multi party conflicts with homogenous

technologies among the parties are of a special interest. These

approaches include the Contest Success Functions (CSF),

which model the probability of winning a certain contest or

conflict subject to the inputs by the parties involved and which

shall be used later on.

See Hirshleifer(2001), p. 18.

- 11 -

Consequences of Conflict

Consequences can range from getting no or less money

to very grave ones like getting killed or defeated in a military

struggle even cooperation and peace are possible. Military

battles often not only yielded partial results in the style of a

won battle, but could lead to crushing defeats of whole

countries. These consequences have to be taken into account

when the actual modelling takes place, although some

interesting results can be obtained about them during

modelling as well.

It would be beyond the scope of this work to include all

the different consequences into the analysis of the battles. For

this thesis the consequences of a certain battle are either to

hold one's ground or the retreat from the battlefield and hence

the loss of terrain, initiative and cohesion among the forces.

Conclusion

But in how far is this of reference for the two working

hypotheses? The first hypothesis states, that the presence of

Napoleon had an impact on the French probability of winning

a battle. This is actually both an amendment to the technology

of conflict and the modelling. By making the presence of

Napoleon possible, the technology set is augmented with one

more option and this addition has to be integrated into the

modelling as well.

The second hypothesis postulates that the battles of that

era can be modelled via the Contest Success Functions. These,

like we shall see in the next chapter, say that the input of the

competitors the committed forces in military terms can be

- 12 -

used to predict the outcome of such a conflict situation.

Therefore this hypothesis augments the technology set as well

by introducing the input of forces and makes a statement

about the kind of modelling actually to be used.

The most important aspects of conflict for testing these

hypotheses therefore are the actual modelling of the conflict

and to a much smaller degree the technology of the

conflict.

- 13 -

Modelling Contest via the Contest Success Functions

It is important to understand some basic concepts

about Contest Success Functions in general before moving on

to the special Contest Success Functions by Tullock and

Hirshleifer. Hence this chapter will first introduce basic

aspects of Contest Success Functions, before the two special

ones are introduced and analysed. At last it will be discussed

when which function might be applicable.

Contest Success Functions in General

The concept of economic contest evolved, when Tullock

introduced a new approach to measuring the welfare costs of

monopolies.

In his paper he argued that the traditional

approach to calculate the costs of a monopoly for society were

flawed, because they omitted the costs that are connected with

the struggle about the monopoly. In principle the patrons are

overreached in a monopoly case, as the producer can charge

them prices that are higher then they would be in the case of

competition. Therefore the monopolist can make a higher

profit then he could have by selling the same amount on a

competitive market which is highly desirable for him.

Additionally to these burden to the consumers, there is

another burden to society: the costs of the struggle for this

desirable case of being the monopolist. These costs can be

varied and can include lobbying costs, marketing, new

facilities or even bribes - to name only a few. Tullock showed

that these costs also have to be taken into account when

calculating the costs a monopoly had for society. Starting with

this problem of the so-called `rent-seeking'

, many more

conflicts were recognised.

Tullock (1967).

This term was actually coined by Krueger (1974).

- 14 -

Hirshleifer then put forth the argumentation that these

thoughts should be broadened and that the models that had

been designed to describe rent-seeking compromised only a

small part of a much bigger family of Contest Success

Functions. He argued that these Contest Success Functions

could be applied to every conflict situation to provide it with a

theoretical background. Furthermore his impression was, that

on the border of social sciences and economics these Contest

Success Functions would offer new opportunities to shed light

on how conflicts evolve and especially on who will be the

winning party.

During further research it emerged, that there

are some characteristics that all Contest Success Functions

have to share and which can be stated with an axiomatic

character.

As these are best expressed in mathematical terms, we

first need to define the variables we are going to use:

let

be the finite number of contestants in this

contest;

let

be the amount of effort the i

contestant puts

into winning this conflict measured in cost units;

let

) be the probability of the i

contestant to emerge

as the winner of this conflict.

Then we can express the three absolutely needed

axioms about Contest Success Functions this way:

Compare Hirshleifer (1989) for more information.

For a formal analysis check Skaperdas (1994). For the sake of simplicity only the

three most important axioms will be discussed here. It will become evident, that

only these will be needed to create econometric models by which to estimate the

exact CSF later.

- 15 -

A1.

)

and

)

0 for all i

and

)

> 0 if c

> 0.

A2.

)

0 for all i

and

)

0 for all j i.

A3. For any permutation

of the n contestants

(i)

(c)

= p(c

)

= p(c

)

= ... = p(c

)

will hold

true.

Axiom 1 states that all the probabilities sum up to one in

the end, the probability of winning of every contestant is at

least zero and that if you put any kind of effort into the contest,

your probability of succeeding will not be zero. Axiom 2 dilates

this with the presumption that if you put more effort into the

contest your probability of succeeding will rise and that it will

fall if any other contestants decides to invest more. The

anonymity property statement of Axiom 3 then predicates,

that the probability of winning for every contestant does only

rely on his effort, not on who he his.

Any kind of function that tries to model contest has to

fulfil these requirements to give predictions that are at least

conceivable. Nevertheless, these axioms are only the lowest

bar every kind of economic modelling has to take. In no way

do they differentiate good models from bad ones - but only

models that could describe reality from those models that

never could do so. During research two families of Contest

Success Functions evolved, which dominate conflict economics

This approach owes greatly to Skaperdas (1994), who was among the first to

point out these fundamentals in such a clear manner.

- 16 -

nowadays. Both have unique features and fulfil all the three

axioms introduced above, so that they can be used for

modelling. Named after their most striking characteristics

these are the Ratio Contest Success Function and the

Difference Contest Success Function, which will be discussed

and explained now.

The Ratio Contest Success Function

In Tullock's basic model of `rent-seeking' the probability

of winning for a contestant

was determined by the ratio of

the own effort and all efforts together. For the case of only two

players this can be expressed as:

+ c

This fairly basic model was in turn amended by several

papers

and evolved by adding a factor m , the so called `mass-

effect-parameter', and a factor k

which measures how

efficient the effort of the i

player is.

The amended and

generalized Tullock function then evolves into the generally

applicable Ratio Contest Success Function:

)

The Ratio Contest Success Function obviously fulfils all

the three axioms we established during the general approach

to Contest Success Functions and therefore does not conflict

with reality per se.

Furthermore, it has a special attribute

that characterises it: p

(

)

= p

) for all i . This implies that

Contestant and player will from now on be used as synonyms.

Hirshleifer (1994) credits among others Hillmann and Katz (1984), Corcoran

and Karels (1985) and Hillmann and Samet (1987) with the improvement of the

Tullock model.

This factor

can be the same for all players a special case when it looses it

meaning but we can not assume this without proof.

Proof for this is trivial and can be found in Skaperdas (1994).

- 17 -

if all the inputs are multiplied by a fixed amount

, no results

and probabilities will change.

Using the Ratio Contest

Success Function the probability of winning a conflict does

only depend on the ratio of the efforts involved, the `mass-

effect-parameter' ( m ) and the efficiency of the individual

players ( k

). If all players increase their efforts with the same

ratio, no effects will occur. The contrary happens when the

players increase their efforts by the same amount the

probabilities will change then.

Interestingly the behaviour of the Ratio Contest Success

Function depends only on the `mass-effect-parameter' m when

only one player changes his efforts. Regardless of the level of

it always holds true that p

= p

if k

= k

. For m

1 the

player will face diminishing returns to his efforts all the time.

When m

>1 increasing returns to effort are possible at the

start, with diminishing returns later on. This is illustrated by

Figure 1.

Proof:

(

)

(

)

= p

)

Except for the special case when all the players invest the same effort and are

equally effective in applying it.

Figure 1.

Ratio Contest Success Function

- 18 -

The Difference Contest Success Function

Although Tullock's model obviously has its merits for

instance it is easy to understand and work with - there are

nevertheless several flaws that can render it less usable for

some applications. Hirshleifer criticises, that "there is an

enormous gain when your side's forces increase from just a

little smaller than the enemy's to just a little larger".

Especially when the efforts of both sides are high the Ratio

Contest Success Function will not award further input with a

considerable increase in the probability of winning

but does

predict only a very small effect on the probabilities. Instead of

amending the Ratio Contest Success Function to compensate

for these flaws, he proposed another sort of model that is

based not on the ratio of the efforts but on the differences

between them.

Keeping in mind the axioms A1 to A3 and further

postulating that success in contest depends upon the

difference between the resources committed, he offered the

following model, which is now known as the Difference

Contest Success Function:

+ e

-c

)

This formula is a specific case of the family of the

logistic functions, where

is the `mass-effect-parameter' for

the difference form. This family of functions has several

special features that make them very attractive for describing

probabilities. The most important of these attributes in the

case of the Difference Contest Success Function is the returned

Hirshleifer (1994), p. 93.

This is because of the diminishing returns to effort.

It can be argued that amending the Ratio Contest Success Function would not

have been possible at all.

- 19 -

value, which always is between 0 and 1. Similarly to the case of

the Ratio Contest Success Function, this simple case with two

contestants can be generalized by introducing an efficiency

parameter k

for the individual players and by raising the

amount from 2 to n. The result is the general form of the

Difference Contest Success Function:

Where the Ratio Contest Success Function was not

affected by proportional increases of all efforts, the Difference

Contest Success Function is not affected when all players

increase their efforts by the same absolute amount.

Contrary

to the Ratio Contest Success Function, in this case the `mass-

effect-parameter'

does not change the general shape of the

returns to efforts curve but does influence how steep these

effects are.

The proof that the Ratio Contest Success Function does comply with A1 to A3 is

trivial. See Skaperdas (1994) for further information.

Mathematically this can be expressed as

p(c

) = p(c)

, where

is a vector

of the same dimension as

and

holds true for all

i, j

Figure 2.

Difference Contest Success Function

- 20 -

Choosing the Right Contest Success Function

A visual comparison of the two Contest Success

Functions shows us, that under some circumstances both can

look remarkably alike. This is the case when the players

commit nearly the same amount of effort. For every Ratio CSF

there exists then a Difference CSF that has exactly the same

increase in probability for a further unit of effort.

Hence it can be complicated to differentiate between

the two kinds of Contest Success Functions practically,

especially when the measured efforts of the contestants do not

vary much among each other and among the contests. In cases

where either the efforts among the contestants or among the

contests do vary more it gets easier to differentiate and to

decide upon the function with the greater explanatory value.

Theoretically we would expect the RCSF to be of higher

value if the contest is conducted under optimal circumstances

where total information for all the players and perfect

To get the same slope in this point

has to be fulfilled. For proof of this

skip to Appendix A.

Figure 3.

DCSF (

= 0.04

) and RCSF (

= 4

)

- 21 -

homogeneity of the efforts can be assumed, the RCSF is

normally chosen. When we expect frictions to happen and

decisions problems for the players to arise, we would assume

that the DCSF would prevail.

This is a result of the way the functions are modelled

and is much easier to understand, if one assumes the analogy

of a battlefield. The RCSF would describe the battle pretty

accurately if the battlefield were flat, had no fog, offered no

places to hide and we could use all our units simultaneously

and wherever we wanted them to be right at this moment. We

then would expect the larger force to use its superior numbers

for a concentrated assault. It would be logical for the

defending force to concentrate as well, as smaller units would

have even smaller chances of winning. Therefore we expect an

all-out battle of attrition that concentrates in one spot with all

the forces.

The DCSF describes a totally different battlefield, on

which movement, dispersion and knowledge about the enemy

are all limited. We then can interpret the difference between

the two parties involved as reserves that the superior force still

can use, after the whole enemy force has been engaged. This

force then could be used to fight only at certain spots and not

against all of the enemy force. Hence we expect this kind of

battle to be divided into smaller encounters where different

units fight each other, with one side having reserves in the

backhand. This model hence should provide to be a better fit if

we try to analyse battles that only lasted a certain time and so

could not evolve into battles of attrition.

- 22 -

II History

History is the version of past events that people have

decided to agree upon.

Napoleon Bonaparate

- 23 -

The Essentials about Napoleonic Warfare

During the discussion of economic conflict theory it

emerged, that there are four aspects to every analysis of

conflict on which light has to be shed. We established before,

that the sources of conflict and the consequences do not

belong to the topics of this thesis. In the last chapter we

examined a way of modelling the conflict via the Contest

Success Functions. Nevertheless there still does remain the

question of the technology of conflict. Necessarily this

question could not be answered in an abstract way, as

everything can belong to it. We therefore need to discuss it

directly along the lines of the conflict explored. The following

chapter is based upon several historical works that are listed in

the references in detail. Two of these were of special

importance: The Art of Warfare on Land by David Chandler

and Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of

Napoleon by Rory Muir

As a battle only forms a small cut-out of a war, war itself

constitutes only one way of conflict. During a war everything

can be an instrument to be turned against the enemy

together they make the technology of this war. From the more

subtle ones to the brutish attacks all have to be taken into

account, when deciding what constitutes the technology.

Recurring on the working hypotheses, we do not need to deal

with the technology of these wars in total, but only with what

could be applied during the battles that formed the

culminations of warfare in these times. We now will have to

examine the technology of Napoleonic era battles and will start

with the armament of these times. The soldiers that could be

fielded, the organisation of the armies and their tactics are

examined afterwards.

Chandler (2001).

Muir (1998).

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Pages
Type of Edition: Originalausgabe
Year: 2013
ISBN (PDF): 9783954895076
ISBN (Softcover): 9783954890071
File size: 3.7 MB
Language: English
Publication date: 2013 (June)
Keywords: Napoleon Econometrics History Contest Success Functions Economy of Conflict

Author

Felix Christoph Lotzin (Author)

Oberleutnant Diplom-Volkswirt Felix Christoph Lotzin was born in Hamburg in 1985. After his Vordiplom in Volkwirtschaftslehre at the University of Mannheim in 2006, he joined the army.Having completed his studies in Volkwirtschaftslehre, Politikwissenschaft and Geschichtswissenschaft at the Helmut-Schmidt-University in 2010, he is now a Diplom-Volkswirt. His already in early times formed fascination with the historical period of the liberation wars inspired him to calculate Napoleons military abilities utilizing econometric methods.

The Emperor on the Battlefield: Napoleon's Worth as a Military Commander

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Author

Felix Christoph Lotzin (Author)