Napoleon fights for Prussia

OS fan

Banned
At first, I want to apologize to start a second discussion which is almost identical to another one, save for the country in question.

There are, I think, some timelines on this forum which consider what could have happened if Napoleon Bonaparte had fought for Britain. However, I have not found any where he fights for Prussia.

Under which circumstances could he have chosen Prussia services?
What could he have achieved as the leader of the Prussia armies?
 

Germaniac

Donor
If Napoleon joined the Prussian military I doubt he would ever make it past a lowly soldier, the Prussian military was controlled by junkers and a Frenchman would never be taken seriously. Napolean was a product of his time. Without the French revolutions push to find young officers who showed talent Napoleon would never have been given a chance to lead an army regardless of talent. Remember his father was a Corsican revolutionary, I doubt that would have looked good to the autocratic regimes of Europe at the time.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
Nappy was a noble. You must not forget he was a Corsician noble and thus would be accepted by the Junker. Also it was possible in the Prussian army to become a general as a commoner (indeed this happened only once, but many more were ennobled before). Also his father was a resistance fighter against the French. In 1769 he accepted the amnesty of the French, as he had to feed a family. Now here you could make a PoD: He doesn't accept. He is forced to go into exile. Somehow he accepts an offer of Frederic the Great to become an official in Prussia. There his son Napoleon was born. He was taught a love to Corsica and to figfht for the liberation.

His father died in 1785 and Frederic the Great accepted Nappy as soldier of the artillery, where he soon became an officer...
 
Nappy was a noble. You must not forget he was a Corsician noble and thus would be accepted by the Junker. Also it was possible in the Prussian army to become a general as a commoner (indeed this happened only once, but many more were ennobled before). Also his father was a resistance fighter against the French. In 1769 he accepted the amnesty of the French, as he had to feed a family. Now here you could make a PoD: He doesn't accept. He is forced to go into exile. Somehow he accepts an offer of Frederic the Great to become an official in Prussia. There his son Napoleon was born. He was taught a love to Corsica and to figfht for the liberation.

His father died in 1785 and Frederic the Great accepted Nappy as soldier of the artillery, where he soon became an officer...

...

Go on...
 
One thing that probably would change is either Napoleon's love of artillery, or the Prussian artillery arm. If the Prussian artillery (which was fairly awful at the time) does not change, then I think it unlikely Napoleon would develop such an attachment to artillery. He'd probably become some other form of officer. If the Prussian artillery does change, then results would certainly be interesting.

I'm not sure how easy it would be for Napoleon to achieve a high rank, although he would likely be considerably helped if a situation similar to our 1806 occurred where Prussia was humiliated and the weakness of her army proven.

I'm not really sure that Napoleon's origins would be much frowned upon. James Keith, one of Frederick's best subordinates was a the son of a Scottish Earl and a Jacobite.
 
If Napoleon joined the Prussian military I doubt he would ever make it past a lowly soldier, the Prussian military was controlled by junkers and a Frenchman would never be taken seriously. Napolean was a product of his time. Without the French revolutions push to find young officers who showed talent Napoleon would never have been given a chance to lead an army regardless of talent. Remember his father was a Corsican revolutionary, I doubt that would have looked good to the autocratic regimes of Europe at the time.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Wilhelm_von_L'Estocq
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
One thing that probably would change is either Napoleon's love of artillery, or the Prussian artillery arm. If the Prussian artillery (which was fairly awful at the time) does not change, then I think it unlikely Napoleon would develop such an attachment to artillery. He'd probably become some other form of officer. If the Prussian artillery does change, then results would certainly be interesting.

I'm not sure how easy it would be for Napoleon to achieve a high rank, although he would likely be considerably helped if a situation similar to our 1806 occurred where Prussia was humiliated and the weakness of her army proven.

I'm not really sure that Napoleon's origins would be much frowned upon. James Keith, one of Frederick's best subordinates was a the son of a Scottish Earl and a Jacobite.

The Prussian king Frederick the Great said about his artillery: "They did their duty." If you knew his measures you would not say the Prussian artillery under him was bad (later is another matter, but we are now still in his reign when Nappy enters the service).
 
The Prussian artillery was worse than the Austrian in the Seven Years War IIRC. Since then, it hadn't really improved much, and it is now using the 1782 model, which Clausewitz described as the worst in Europe. If we're assuming that Napoleon leaves Sardinia and arrives in Prussia in 1785, it'll take him a couple of years to earn his commission and by that point the Prussian artillery will be pretty bad.
 
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