You're dreaming. Since 1806 Napoleon hadn't seriously cut any army up, but in this ATL he will need Jena-Auerstedt, Ulm or Austerlitz victories in close succession to prevail.
Well, going after Davout (or leaving him alone, for that matter) will cause a Jena-Auerstadt. Ulm was a freak encounter which could only happen at the start of a war, or through incredibly unlikely circumstances. Austerlitz may get a replay later in the campaign. Something like this. Davout is isolated, but manages to fend off a large portion of the allied army, while Napoleon ripps up a flanking force. After the restoration and Waterloo, the allies need a victory. what happens next is up in the air. Think Austerlitz, Leipzig, and Borodino comined into one battle.
Of course Napoleon with cavalry is more dangerous than Napoleon without, but he obviously wasn't dangerous enough in autumn of 1813, when he had a full complement of cavalry, much of it Guard.
But Napoleon had a habit of not commiting the Imperial Guard. I cannot find a specific source, but I remember that they were not commited at Austerlitz, Jena, Borodino, or Leipzig, among other battles.
Please Atreus, Wikipedia alone will not convince many on this board. It is OK to get an overview or to start a closer investigation, buy anyway your quote doesn't negate that Napoleon was forced to leave not only the battlefield (classical definition of defeat) but Germany for good (a decisive strategic defeat). On the 1813 and 1814 campaigns I especially will recommend works from before 1850, von Sporschill is one good example that comes to memory, but you will need to read German incl. gothic writing.
I know wikipedia is not a good source, but it does for short notice. And it corroberates what I got from other websites and books fairly well. But leaving a battlefield is not always a margin of defeat. while the circumstances are different, I would like to refer to the words of Admiral Reyne, commander of convoy SL 125, during WWII:
It was the only time in my career that I had been congratulated for loosing a large number of ships.
While not perfect, it does illustrate the point that losses or withdrawal are not a sure measure of defeat. In fact, the one thing that made Leipzig a real defeat for Napoleon, instead of a tactical defeat but a strategic draw, was the collapse of the bridge, which left a large French formation trapped between the river and the Coalition.
That the allies did not overrun the main French force was perhaps becausze they did not intend to. The allied strategy was one of cautiously applying ever more force until breaking the enemy, and not risking to be caught out on a limp. They had tried that several times but now knew very well that caution paid off vs. Napoleon. In many ways the allied stratgey in late Napoleon wars are similar to those of the allied in WWII, and Schwarzenberg's job similar to that of Eisenhower. And like Blitzkrieg being a blunted weapon by late WWII Napoleon's earlier monopoly on permanent armycorps, march separately and strike united etc. was broken by 1809.
Eisenhower is not a very good strategic model. He could have done far better than he did. And no monopoly on the corps system does not mean napoleon loses outright. It just means he has a slightly harder time of it.
If you like to think of Napoleon winning Leipzig it is OK for me, and had the allied command been less keen in their cautious determination, he might have had a chance, but as it was it was a very minor chance. Perhaps if the allies had won a tactical victory at Dresden and become overly self-confident Napoleon would have had a fair chance of anihilating at least one of the allied armies, but I'm not sure that would be enough to win the war (I would however like to see Bernadotte throughly trashed - and yes I know he is one of the ancestors to the present Danish Royal House, but Bernadotte just seem like one who deserve a good thrashing).
Regards
Steffen Redbeard[/QUOTE]
I personally think a napoleonic defeat at leipzig was likely, but by no means inevitable. And yes, Bernadotte deserved a thrashing. he was a mediocre general, something of a traitor to the french, and did little to help the others. An interesting scenario would be for a large Austrian Army (Ill say Schwarzenburg, he is the only commander I can think of with a large force directly under him) to be crushed, in a battle comparable to Austerlitz. Many austrians would complain, seeing themselves as catspaws for Russian interests. or reverse the encounter, have the russians beaten, accuse the Austrians of doing nothing.
Regards,
Atreus
