History Essay on Napoleon’s Mistakes

Napoleon Made a Mistake in Entrusting His Armies to Inferior Generals

Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the most powerful and respected generals in the world history. He was also one of the most feared ones, but still he was defeated. In this essay I will describe some of the reasons of his failure and will try to show, what lessons we can learn from this interesting personality.

The main causes of his misfortune can be found not in the actual number of battles that he lost, but in the number of internal struggles that he had to face. In order to defeat him there was the Quadruple Alliance created that consisted of four countries: Prussia, Russia, Austria and Great Britain. Their main aim was to put an end to revolutions that were taking place in Europe. At the time the Alliance was created, Napoleon’s ruling has already started to fall into decline.

After a series of successful conquests, Napoleon controlled many countries, but often there was nepotism present, which resulted in weak rulers. They, in their turn, couldn’t properly control their territories, and thus there were numerous rebellions and revolutions. Apart from the problems on the conquered territories Napoleon began to lose in important battles. This practically meant the end of his career. One of the important mistakes he made that led to the defeats in battles was the fact that Napoleon entrusted his armies to inferior generals. One of them was Ney, who didn’t even have education and made many mistakes in battle at Waterloo. He sent his cavalry to attack hastily, which led to them being slaughtered within minutes.

It is possible to make a conclusion that although Napoleon was an outstanding personality, he wasn’t able to control everything properly. On the whole, it is always better to found countries on peaceful principles. History shows us that wars never result in anything good.