Napoleon Series Archive 2013

Re: 'The Talavera Game'

Kevin:
As to your quotes. Again, they don’t point to any belief in Bernadotte’s deliberate disobedience, either in motive or execution.

Napoleon wrote to Bernadotte on the 23d regarding his absence from both Jena and Auerstadt:

'However, according to a very precise order, you ought to have been at Dornburg, which is one of the principal passages of the Saale, on the same day as Marshal Lannes was at Jena, Marshal Augereau at Kahla, and Marshal Davout at Naumburg. In case you had not executed these orders, I had informed you during the night that, if you were still at Naumburg, you should march with Marshal Davout and support him. You were at Naumberg when these orders arrived; it was communicated to you; but, nevertheless, you preferred to make a false march in order to turn back to Dornburg, and in consequence you did not find yourself in the battle, and Marshal Davout bore the principal efforts of the enemy's army.'-quoted in Foucart, II, 243.

Napoleon seems to be operating under some mistaken assumptions in his message to Bernadotte… nine days after the battles.

1. Napoleon makes a distinction between the “very precise orders” and later orders, which is telling. He should have been in Dornburg.
2. Napoleon seems to be under the impression that Bernadotte received direct orders to him at the same time Davout did. It may well be that Bernadotte had
orders which failed to arrive because of administrative snafus. As Vachée points out, that happened several times during the campaign. There was nothing in
Davout’s orders about support nor is the word ‘should’ found at all. In reading the orders written at the time of the campaign, when support was the order, the
word support was used. When an officer should do something, the word ‘can’ was not.
3. Bernadotte didn’t ‘turn back’ to Dornburg. He would have had to ‘turn back’ to march with Davout. In fact, the I Corps was already not in Naumburg and on the
road to Dornburg.
4. And as we seem to agree on the meaning, the march was a ‘false’ march: not a true one, badly executed, and failing to get the I Corps into battle.

Napoleon told Rapp at Jena: 'Bernadotte has behaved badly. He would have been enchanted to see Davout fail in that affair, which does him [Davout] the greatest honor, all the more so because Bernadotte had rendered his position difficult.'-Rapp, Memoirs, 84.

I am sure that Bernadotte behaved badly and would have loved to have seen Davout fail, as Davout undoubtedly enjoyed Bernadotte’s failure. This quote does not say or even imply that Bernadotte purposely disobeyed Napoleon’s orders.

Savary said that Napoleon's remarks about Bernadotte were even more pointed:

'That is so hateful that if I send him to a court-martial it is equivalent to ordering him to be shot; it is better for me not to speak to him about it. I believe he has enough honor to recognize that he has performed a disgraceful action regarding which I shall not bandy words with him.'-Savary, Memoirs II, 292.

They are pointed remarks. However, these are NOT the words of a man who believed Bernadotte deliberately disobeyed him in a combat situation in order to lead another into disaster. Would Napoleon think such a man had any honor? Would Napoleon want such a man in command in the future? This, again, does not point to any belief on Napoleon’s part that Bernadotte deliberately disobeyed him in order to abandon Davout to the enemy.

On St. Helena, Napoleon wrote about Bernadotte, concluding, "I can accuse him of ingratitude but not treachery."
Barton, Sir Dunbar Plunkett: Bernadotte and Napoleon: 1763–1810. John Murray, London 1921. p. 258

Bill

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Re: 'The Talavera Game'
Re: 'The Talavera Game'