正文翻译

Was Wellington a better general than Napoleon, or was Napoleon just having a really bad day at Waterloo?

威灵顿是比拿破仑更好的将军，还是拿破仑只是在滑铁卢度过了非常糟糕的一天？

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评论翻译

Henrey Bradley

, Amateur Historian, Adventurer

Ok, let's get one thing straight, we’re comparing fracking Napoleon and Wellington, probably the two greatest Generals in the history of our species.

We’re essentially comparing the Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, of the field of war.

Napoleon fanboys all over the world throwing their croissants on the floor and stomping their little high heeled boots in a tantrum, stop wasting perfectly good pastries and give Wellington the credit he deserves.

After the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon said - “Wellington ought to have retreated, and not fought that battle, for had he lost it, I should have established myself in France. Wellington risked too much, for by the rules of war I should have gained the battle

This is the key difference in the character of both men, for Wellington admired and heaped praise on Napoleon, while Napoleon himself scorned Wellington, dismissing his ability, and victory at Waterloo as nothing short of luck.

Yet the achievements of the Duke of Wellington are criminally underrated, he is the genius who never lost a major battle, across his outstanding military career. The commander that conquered vast regional powers while chronically outnumbered, the Master of logistics and quite possibly the greatest tactician of his age. He is the only commander who routinely dominated Napoleonic France on the battlefield, and he did this a stupid amount of times.

Both men displayed unrivalled battlefield tactical depth, exemplary understanding of strategy across their many campaigns, and unique individual styles which they both developed over their long careers, put simply, they stand apart from all other Generals, they’re the most complete generals in the pantheon of war.

Napoleon, ever the copycat, crossed the Alpes into Italy with an army in the footsteps of Hannibal (for me the most complete pre-firearms general), Napoleon then commissioned a grand painting of himself that clearly copied the Duke of Marlborough’s famous portrait, the only difference is, Napoleon asked that he be depicted as super sexy.

Who the frack is the Duke of Marlborough, you say?

While mocking Napoleon is culturally ingrained in me, don’t let that deceive you. For most of my youth, I believed Napoleon was the finest military commander in history, followed by the standard - Hannibal, Alexander and Cesear, in that order.

Notice a distinct lack of Wellington in my youthful list, well that is to my shame, years later I delved into the Peninsular War, reading about figures such as John Moore and the small professional British army that was elite compared to the conscxt units of the continent.

It was impossible not to be impressed by Wellington’s stunning 6-year military campaign across occupied Portugal and Spain, defeating the much larger French occupying forces with shocking ease, in multiple engagements and major battles. After kicking the French armies out of Spain in a series of epic battles, Wellington then casually invaded France in 1813, two years before the Battle of Waterloo, embarrassing the powerful French army guarding the border and then going on a rampage spanking every French army sent to stop him, Wellington showed that Napoleon’s seemingly invincible military that had been dominating the trembling armies of the continent for a decade, was actually beatable.

No other General during the Napoleonic Wars defeated as many French Armies in battle, not even close, the Duke of Wellington stood alone, the undefeated General.

I still rate Napoleon alongside Wellington, the two most complete Generals in history, in fact, had Napoleon displayed the same masterful understanding of Logistics that Wellington had, then Napoleon would likely be sitting in first place, and Wellington in second.

However, Wellington held a clear edge in logistics, and maybe even battlefield tactics, using reverse slopes to counter French artillery countless times, and crushing French columns formed of thousands of conscxts, with smaller forces of elite British soldiers formed in disciplined lines.

After the battle of Sabugal 1811, Wellington wrote; "Our losses are much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men... really these French attacks against our lines with columns of men are contemptible."

Was Napoleon just having a bad day at the Battle of Waterloo?

Yes, but only because old Napoleon was certain he would defeat the British led army of 68,000 with his larger 73,000. Less than half was formed of professional British Soldiers, Napoleon only had to overwhelm the small 30k British force of elite soldiers that formed the core of the allied army, when they broke the allied armies cohesion would collapse and the conscxts would flee the field.

Throughout the war, the cream of Napoleon's marshalls, his very best generals, had been losing battles to British Armies and writing reports about the unequalled quality of the well trained British professional regiments, the difficulty to merely break and route a single regiment was nothing like the large continental conscxt based armies, and this was coupled with Wellington’s ability and unusually effective tactics

On the eve of Waterloo, Napoleon likely felt confident, for just two days earlier Napoleon had comfortably defeated the much larger Prussian Army at the Battle of Ligny. General Blucher commanded 84,000 men, around 15k more than Napoleon who had merely 69,000.

While Napoleon slapped around Blücher, defeating his larger Prussian army, and inflicting some 16k casualties and another 10k routed, yet only a few miles away that very same day, Wellington easily defeated Marshal Ney, at the Battle of Quatre Bras. Schooling one of Napoleons finest generals.

At Waterloo Napoleon had 73k men, and against his strong army was a 30k strong British army of professional soldiers and another 38k mixed allied conscxt units, which totalled 68k.

Napoleon managed to route over 3,000 allied conscxts during the battle and inflicted 13k casualties in the allied army, he did well. However, Wellington had killed twice this number, causing 26k French casualties, and breaking most of the best French units including their heavy cavalry and 8 Imperial Guard battalions.

Wellington had effectively withstood the standard French massed attacks in huge columns, he met them with elite regiments that were more accurate, fired faster and held well-disciplined lines that devastated the French assaults in columns, throwing back thousands of Imperial Guards, the finest French troops. Breaking the spine and spirit of Napoleon’s army, before the Prussians had even arrived.

Wellington said it best after Waterloo; "They came on in the same old way, and we defeated them in the same old way"

好吧，让我们弄清楚一件事，我们在比较拿破仑和威灵顿，可能是我们人类历史上最伟大的两位将军。

我们基本上是在比较战争领域的莱昂内尔-梅西和克里斯蒂亚诺-罗纳尔多。

全世界的拿破仑迷们可能会气得把他们的羊角面包扔在地上，跺着他们的小高跟鞋发脾气，但是不要再浪费这些这么好的糕点了，请让威灵顿得到他应有的荣誉。

滑铁卢战役后，拿破仑说："威灵顿应该撤退，不打那场战役的，如果他输了，我就能在法国立足。威灵顿冒的风险太大，按照战争规则，我本应获得这场战斗的胜利。

这是两人性格上关键的差异，因为威灵顿钦佩并赞美拿破仑，而拿破仑本人却蔑视威灵顿，认为他的能力和滑铁卢战役的胜利不过是运气。

然而，威灵顿公爵的成就被严重低估了，他是一位天才，在其杰出的军事生涯中从未输过一场大仗。他是一位在长期以少打多的情况下征服了广大地区势力的指挥官，是一位后勤大师，而且很可能是他那个时代最伟大的战术家。他是唯一一位在战场上经常性支配拿破仑的法国的指挥官，而且他这样做的次数之多令人难以置信。

两人都表现出无与伦比的战场战术深度，在众多战役中对战略的理解堪称典范，他们都在漫长的职业生涯中形成了独特的个人风格，简单地说，他们与其他所有的将军不同，他们是战争万神殿中最没有缺点的将军。

拿破仑永远是个模仿者，他带着一支军队沿着汉尼拔（对我来说是最没有缺点的前火器时代的将军）的足迹越过阿尔卑斯山进入意大利，然后拿破仑委托人为自己画了一幅宏伟的画，这幅画明显模仿了马尔堡公爵的著名画像，唯一不同的是，拿破仑要求将他描绘成超级性感。

你说，马尔堡公爵是谁？（链接）

虽然嘲笑拿破仑在文化上对我来说是根深蒂固的，但不要让这一点欺骗了你。在我年轻的大部分时间里，我相信拿破仑是历史上最优秀的军事指挥官，其次是标准的--汉尼拔、亚历山大和塞萨尔，依次排列。

请注意，我年轻时的名单中明显缺少威灵顿，这是我的耻辱，多年后我深入研究了（伊比利亚）半岛战争，阅读了约翰-摩尔等人物和小型职业英国军队，与欧洲大陆的征兵部队相比，他们真的是精英。

威灵顿在被占领的葡萄牙和西班牙开展了长达6年的惊人的军事行动，在多次交战和重大战役中以令人震惊的轻松方式击败了规模更大的法国占领军，这不可能不给人留下深刻印象。在一系列史诗般的战役中将法国军队踢出西班牙后，威灵顿又在滑铁卢战役前两年的1813年随意入侵法国，让守卫边境的强大法国军队感到尴尬，然后大肆鞭挞每一支派来阻止他的法国军队，威灵顿表明，拿破仑看似不可战胜的军队，在十年间一直支配着欧洲大陆颤抖的军队，实际上是可以击败的。

在拿破仑战争期间，没有其他将军在战斗中击败过那么多的法国军队，甚至都没有能接近的，威灵顿公爵独自站在那里，成为不败的将军。

我仍然将拿破仑与威灵顿并列，认为他们是历史上最无暇的两位将军，事实上，如果拿破仑表现出与威灵顿一样的对后勤的高超理解，那么拿破仑很可能会坐在第一位，而威灵顿则排在第二。

然而，威灵顿在后勤方面占有明显的优势，甚至可能在战场战术上也是如此，他无数次地使用反斜坡来对付法国大炮，并以较小的英国精英士兵组成的纪律严明的队伍粉碎了由成千上万的应征士兵组成的法国纵队。

1811年萨布加尔战役后，威灵顿写道："我们的损失比人们想象的要少得多，几乎不到200人......法国人用纵队对我们的防线进行的这些攻击没什么成效。"

在滑铁卢战役中，拿破仑只是过了糟糕的一天吗？

是的，但这只是因为老拿破仑确信他能用他的7.3万名大军击败英国人领导的6.8万名军队。后者只有不到一半的军队是由专业的英国士兵组成的，拿破仑只需要击破组成联军核心的3万英军精锐部队，当他们崩溃时，联军的凝聚力就会崩溃，新兵们就会逃离战场。

在整个战役期间，拿破仑的元帅们，他最优秀的将军们，一直在输给英国军队，并在报告中提到了训练有素的英国职业军团的无与伦比的质量，想要击破和驱逐一个英国军团的难度与欧洲大陆以征兵为主的大军完全不同，再加上威灵顿的能力和异常有效的战术使之更加困难。

在滑铁卢战役前夕，拿破仑很可能感到信心十足，因为就在两天前，拿破仑在利尼战役中轻松击败了规模更大的普鲁士军队。当时布吕歇尔将军指挥着84,000人，比拿破仑多出约15000人，而拿破仑只有69000人。

当拿破仑围着布吕歇尔打，打败了规模比他更大的普鲁士军队，造成了后者大约16000人的伤亡和另外10000人的溃败时，就在同一天，威灵顿在夸特拉斯战役中轻松地打败了内伊元帅，离利尼仅仅几英里远。拿破仑最优秀的将领之一也因此受到训斥。

在滑铁卢，拿破仑有7.3万人，对抗他的强大军队的是一支3万多人的英国职业军人军队和另外3.8万多人的混合盟军义务兵部队，总共有6.8万人。

拿破仑在战斗中成功地歼灭了3000多名盟军士兵，并给盟军造成了13000人的伤亡，他干得不错。然而，威灵顿杀死了这个数字的两倍的法军，造成了2.6万法军的伤亡，并击溃了大部分最好的法军部队，包括他们的重骑兵和8个帝国卫队营。

威灵顿有效地抵御了法军以巨大的纵队进行的标准攻击，他以精锐的军团迎战，这些军团更加目的明确，射击速度更快，并保持着纪律严明的防线，破坏了法军的纵队攻击，将数以千计的帝国卫队，最优秀的法国部队击垮。在普鲁士人还没有到达战场之前，就打破了拿破仑军队的脊梁和精神。

威灵顿在滑铁卢战役后总结得很好："他们以同样的方式进攻，而我们以同样的方式击败了他们"。

【龙腾网】滑铁卢是拿破仑的失败还是威灵顿的胜利？