I read Dormin’s post on Napoleon and wait… what does it MEAN that Napoleon was good at logistics. He didn’t go around farming and delivering food to people after all. What was so special about him that he deserves such high praise as
In order to find this, I looked for some of Napoleon’s letters online. It looks like there’s a fairly exhaustive compendium, but it’s only in French. I was lucky enough to find an old collection of Napoleon’s letters on archive.org though. Unfortunately it was less than exhaustive, but helpful. This is only a small sample, but I skimmed through and here’s what I found.
Napoleon really did micromanage that much
This guy had too much energy. He has a letter detailing the exact specifications for a new unit he was raising, down to the height of the cavalrymen and their horses. He specified what the horses should eat and when.
A few of the letters concerned book orders.
“The volumes should contain 5 or 600 pages each, and should be bound with loose back, so that they open flat, and in the thinnest possible boards. This library would be composed of about 40 volumes on religion, 40 of epics, 40 of plays, 60 of poetry, 100 of novels, and 60 of history.”
“The Emperor wishes to have a descriptive catalogue of the library, with notes pointing out the best books, together with a memorandum saying what would be the cost of printing and binding these 1000 volumes, what proportion of an author’s works each volume would contain, what each volume would weigh, how many boxes of what size would be needed to hold them all, and how much space they would take up.”
He also details precisely which authors he wants to have books of, and which he does not. There are multiple of these letters ordering book sets. These are not the words of a man who goes with the flow.
He gave a shit about money
Some of these letters reminded me of John Rockefeller’s attitude towards money. When writing to order clothes, he specified precisely the budget of each article of clothing, as well as how long it should last. When ruling Elba, he had the following to say about gardening.
“reprimand the gardener for employing three men all the month on a garden the size of my hand, and 11 grenadiers for loading up a few cartfuls of earth. I disapprove of the proposed expenditure on turf during October: I would rather have grass seed. The gardener must bargain with the grenadiers to load earth at so much a cubic metre, and use just enough carts to keep them constantly employed. I don’t think this ought to cost more than 80 francs. Similarly, the O.C. Engineers must bargain with the grenadiers for the excavation of the gardens. I estimate the cost at 400 francs. I therefore allow 480 francs for the Supplementary Estimates for the gardens during October.”
Also, later in the same letter.
“I refuse to pay the 280 francs demanded by the Stores department for petty cash. I can only allow 40 francs. Have an estimate made out for the ordinary expenditure of the Stores during October.” _____
Between these two factors, I think it’s reasonable to say Napoleon’s talent in logistics was nothing more than an obsession with detail. Where another would choose to focus on a different, more glamorous aspect of running an army, Napoleon managed to squeeze pleasure out of arguing with merchants about prices. He really did seem to like this stuff…
“I advise you to take a pleasure in reading your muster rolls. The splendid state of my armies is due to the fact that I spend an hour or two every day doing this; and when they send me the monthly return of my troops and fleets, which take up about 20 big files, I give up every other occupation to study them in detail, and to see what difference there is between one month and another. I get more enjoyment out of reading these returns than a young girl does out of reading a novel.”
As an aside, it’s funny to see that he really didn’t “get” the navy at all. There were few references to it at all, and the following is an excerpt of a letter to his Minister of the Navy.
“If it is really necessary, these ships can carry bronze guns, which weigh much less.
You are to submit the engineers’ report to me personally”
I didn’t see anywhere else that he expressed any doubt or asked anyone’s opinion of anything in the other letters.
Napoleon’s Letters Translated and Edited by J. M. Thompson Good pages to see (numbered wrt pdf) - 49, 121, 167, 169, 238, 255, 292, 309, 369
