Napoleon Wins Decisively at Waterloo...then what?

So let's say Grouchy finishes off the Prussians and arrives with his forces and Napoleon decisively crushes Wellington at Waterloo. Then what? Yes, I know there's a huge chance Napoleon gets finished off sooner or later.

But, is there a chance that the coalition can crack? They were showing at least some signs of breaking apart at that point. Is there any chance that after Waterloo, the coalition fractures enough that Nappy has a chance?

No. All of Europe has been at war with Napoleon for 20 years, and they're absolutely exhausted. More importantly, they've finally figure him out. Expect them keep the coalition going until they can finish him off, and they to finish him as quickly as possible.

EDIT: I would suggest that if anyone wants to read a really thorough history of the Napoleonic Wars, checking out Robert Harvey's War of Wars might be a good idea.
 

Anderman

Donor
Wasn't another French army similar to the size Napoleon had at Waterloo being mobilized at Paris while he was marching against the British and Prussians? Of course Napoleon would have to execute everything just about flawlessly to have a chance, but if he moves quickly, can he knock out the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians separately?

I never heard or read that there another French army in Paris but i read severat times on this board that the forces with whom Wellington covered his line of communication were as large as the forces he had at Waterloo.

Blücher had 4 corps with him another 3 prussian corps were still in prussia proper.
 
If you want Napoleon to be on throne, you need to stop in 1802 peace of Amiens. The continuation of it, the absorption of what had been won in the revolutionary wars (Austrian Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Rhineland) should have been the priority for Napoleon, not a mafia-ish attempt at consumption of Europe centred around his family. Anything more than that at that point of time would have everyone ganging up on Napoleon. It would disrupt the balance of power too decisively, and no one would allow that.

If Napoleon stops in 1802, he can get into an alliance with Austria (Josephine gets the heave ho earlier) marrying Marie Louise, and stamp French domination (with some power shared with Austria), and between France, Bavaria, and Austria, they can keep Germany, Iberian peninsula, Netherlands and Italy under their influence. Prussia, Russia and Britain will still dislike it, but they won't (and can't) tear up Europe to remove Napoleon.
 
If you want Napoleon to be on throne, you need to stop in 1802 peace of Amiens.

There were a number of opportunities for Napoleon to get most or all of what he wanted either through diplomacy or dynastic marriages, but that would require a personality transplant. Once Napoleon started he was psychologically incapable of stopping.
 
There are a number of problems. Regarding Spain. The country was in no condition to go to war with anyone in 1815. In fact its American colonies were beginning their war for independence> Denmark was a former Ally of France and had no love at all for the Coalition , who had robbed them of Norway.
The army that Wellington had in Belgium was not that which had won the war in Spain. In fact the defeat at Waterloo might have been enough to bring down the government.
According to history the allies advance toward France was quiet cautious. Napoleons Marshals were able to give them a bloody nose.
Czar Alexander I was beng urged to return home with the army. A crushing blow to the British and Prussian armies might just have given Napoleon enough of a break to concentrate his forces.
It is likely that the Belgian troops might have switched sides as they did not really care to be part of the Dutch Kingdom.
 
There are a number of problems. Regarding Spain. The country was in no condition to go to war with anyone in 1815. In fact its American colonies were beginning their war for independence> Denmark was a former Ally of France and had no love at all for the Coalition , who had robbed them of Norway.
The army that Wellington had in Belgium was not that which had won the war in Spain. In fact the defeat at Waterloo might have been enough to bring down the government.
According to history the allies advance toward France was quiet cautious. Napoleons Marshals were able to give them a bloody nose.
Czar Alexander I was beng urged to return home with the army. A crushing blow to the British and Prussian armies might just have given Napoleon enough of a break to concentrate his forces.
It is likely that the Belgian troops might have switched sides as they did not really care to be part of the Dutch Kingdom.


Hmm. So maybe it was not all lost after all.
 
EDIT: I would suggest that if anyone wants to read a really thorough history of the Napoleonic Wars, checking out Robert Harvey's War of Wars might be a good idea.

I am not sure this is a good source. It has a bit too much of a pro-British bias. Particularly if you compare it with other sources, it has a very subtle anti-French bias too. A better one, if you can read French is, Le Grand Consulat, by Thierry Lentz. It is a four volume work, but is an excellent source. Maybe there is an English translation of it too; I do not know.
 
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There are a number of problems. Regarding Spain. The country was in no condition to go to war with anyone in 1815. In fact its American colonies were beginning their war for independence> Denmark was a former Ally of France and had no love at all for the Coalition , who had robbed them of Norway.
The army that Wellington had in Belgium was not that which had won the war in Spain. In fact the defeat at Waterloo might have been enough to bring down the government.
According to history the allies advance toward France was quiet cautious. Napoleons Marshals were able to give them a bloody nose.
Czar Alexander I was beng urged to return home with the army. A crushing blow to the British and Prussian armies might just have given Napoleon enough of a break to concentrate his forces.
It is likely that the Belgian troops might have switched sides as they did not really care to be part of the Dutch Kingdom.

The French are in even worse shape. Even a decisive victory at Waterloo isn't going to change that. Even in the best case scenario a victory is not going to be bloodless for France. If the Allies were punch drunk and reeling France just got up from the count of 9 and is barely standing. The Allies know full well if they make any sort of peace with Napoleon he will simply use the time to get ready for the next war. They had to deal with him there and then and they knew it.
 
I am not sure this is a good source. It has a bit too much of a pro-British bias. Particularly if you compare it with other sources, it has a very subtle anti-French bias too. A better one, if you can read French is, Le Grand Consulat, by Thierry Lentz. It is a four volume work, but is an excellent source. Maybe there is an English translation of it too; I do not know.

I can't speak to other sources, but I don't its as biased you seem to think. He is quite critical of how the British mishandled the early phases of the war, particularly in the south of France.
 
I can't speak to other sources, but I don't its as biased you seem to think. He is quite critical of how the British mishandled the early phases of the war, particularly in the south of France.

The feeling I got, compared to other sources, is that he is wholly unsympathetic to the idea of the French revolution itself. He views France from the exasperated view people had towards Napoleon later in his career. Earlier, particularly during the Revolutionary wars, there was a lot of sympathy for France among the middle class, throughout Europe. You will see this when you read the Le Grand Consulat. This bit is conspicuous by its absence in the analysis of Harvey.

As an example, he mentions the disgraceful exhibitions of looting by the French army in Italy. He ignores that the Milanese happily toppled their aristocratic rulers and the middle class replacements grabbed power, and were grateful to the French, at least for the moment.
 
The French are in even worse shape. Even a decisive victory at Waterloo isn't going to change that. Even in the best case scenario a victory is not going to be bloodless for France. If the Allies were punch drunk and reeling France just got up from the count of 9 and is barely standing. The Allies know full well if they make any sort of peace with Napoleon he will simply use the time to get ready for the next war. They had to deal with him there and then and they knew it.

In the case that Napoleon does manage to pull a rabbit out of his hat and force the Austrians and Russians off, and then dies, what would the coalition think if another Bonaparte succeeded him?
 
In the case that Napoleon does manage to pull a rabbit out of his hat and force the Austrians and Russians off, and then dies, what would the coalition think if another Bonaparte succeeded him?


More to the point what would the French think?

Napoleon's only virtue was his military prowess, and after 1812 even that wasn't what it had been. Did any of his nondescript relatives share it?
 
IMO,

Napoleon has a chance to keep his throne after Waterloo. It is not the most probable outcome but it is plausible. However, it depends on 2 prequesites.
1) That the Prussian army which fought at Waterloo OTL is completely crushed immediately afterward (as in removed from the board entirely, killed, captured or disbanded beyond any hope of rebuild). If that happens, the threat of Prussia is removed. Yes, prussia had other troops, but these were 2nd rate and not in theater. If Blutcher's army (preferebaly with Blutsher himself and Geisenau) is out of the picture, France is safe from attack on that side (which does not mean Napoleon can invade prussia just that there will be no prussian attack soon)
2) that the defeat at waterloo causes a change in Governmant in the UK and that the new government is fed up with paying pensions for the Bourbons for a quarter of a century and subsidising most of Europe for nearly the same time so much that it would be willing to listen to a peace proposal. If that happens (which is totally out of Napoleon's hands) and napoleon listen to Talleyrand (who will come to him after a victory at waterloo), which is more likely in 1815 than in 1807 or 1812, then a modus vivendi can be found between France and UK.

If the above occurs then Napoleon still has to face 2 foe with armies in the field, Austria and Russia, and cannot afford any major loss, as he has what is basically the last army France can field in that generation (or at least decade). However, he has still has a chance to deal with his foe in separation.

The Russia army is moving very slowly because of command problems. The Russian officer corp, as a whole, hated being under the orders of a foreign general (barclay de Tolly was considered such) and did everything to make him look bad. In OTL, they stopped dragging their feet after Waterloo, so as to be in for the kill and not to be accused of cowardice, but will keep doing so in case of a French Victory at Waterloo.

Which allows Napoleon the chance to confront the Austrian army on its own and a possibility to defeat it in detail. Now, just like France Austria's army was its last army. If that Army is lost, then there is not enough troops to confront NApoleon and ensure that there is no nationalist revolts in every little nationality which make up A-H empire. So fighting Napoleon is an all or nothing gamble. If the army is destroyed, so is the Empire. Napoleon is willing to risk this (once again) and does not really have a choice but A-H can easily negociate from a position of strength and have a trump card in negociation as they hold Napoleon's wife and most importantly his son and heir. SO I think A-H will make peace with Napoleon.

That leaves Russia alone in the field. Without allies and with all its territorial goals already achieved, Russia has no reason to send and army to france. It can get more from Talleyrand than from the Congress of Vienna OTL, so Russia may well opt for peace also.

In summary, there is a chance provided the 2 hypotheses above, but even that is not a certainty, or even the most probable, given the hatred for Napoleon in some rulers.
 

E.Ransom

Banned
I don't really think it would have mattered long-term to be honest.
The rest of Europe was DETERMINED to get rid of Napoleon. Yes, Napoleon winning at Waterloo would have been a setback, but I'm not sure how big of a setback it would have been long-term. France doesn't have the ressources or manpower to stand up to fight and win against basically all of the great powers.
 
I'm not sure what would happen to the Rhineland Territories, as Austria is really the only one with an Army in the area that would let them serve as the wall against France that Prussia was given the territories for, but I don't think they would really want that territory since it is far from Austria.
They'd still owned several districts in south-western Germany (and I think in at least one case with the Rhine as the western border) until Napoleon rearranged things, the Rhineland isn't that much further... and they were the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by that stage, even though Lorraine itself had been lost to France (with Tuscany as compensation) a couple of generations earlier, so their ancestral interests extended some distance out to the west of that river.
I can't really see Lorraine being split off from France again by then, but a 'Grand Duchy of the Rhine' incorporating some mainly-Catholic areas in the southern & central Rhineland being created for a cadet branch of the Habsburgs under Austrian protection doesn't seem too implausible to me.

The more northerly & Protestant-majority parts of the Rhineland? Split them between the Netherlands, Hannover, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and maybe one or more of the Hesses: The important thing is to keep the French out, which is why IOTL the British government (unwisely, in hindsight) pushed for an extension of Prussian authority there.

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And in the discussion about which powers still had more troops available, don't forget that Britain had a number of experienced regiments that it would now be bringing back from North America.
 
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IMO<snip>

Wouldn't Wellington fall back in the case of Blucher being destroyed?

Where does Napoleon get the wherewithal to destroy the Prussians without bleeding his own army white?

What about Wellington's eventual re-enforcements from his Peninsular veterans?

Just how long does it take for the Austrians and Russians to deploy?

It took a decade for the rest of Europe to learn all of Napoleon's tricks, but by Waterloo they had learned them, so how does Bonaparte now pull fresh victories out of the air with a single army fighting all the major powers of Europe?
 
Conventional wisdom is that Napoleon would have fought on in a far bloodier version of 1814 wth the campaign lasting throughout 1815 and perhaps even 1816. Napoleon did have fine commanders such as Davout and Suchet that he was unable to use in 1814. Likely he would have won several brilliant victories but, in the end, Allied numbers would have overcome him.. The end result would have been the same with many thousands of additional casualties on both sides.
 
In the case that Napoleon does manage to pull a rabbit out of his hat and force the Austrians and Russians off, and then dies, what would the coalition think if another Bonaparte succeeded him?

They probably won't let the Bonaparte line continue, although as I recall, his brother was quite popular.
 
France had defeated 6 coalitions before this one and it had been vastly outnumbered in strategic terms each time just like this once. Numbers mean nothing if they are not present at the same time. The allies were determined to defeat Napoleon but would this determination have held up under major military defeats? Cracks may very well have appeared.
 
France had defeated 6 coalitions before this one and it had been vastly outnumbered in strategic terms each time just like this once. Numbers mean nothing if they are not present at the same time. The allies were determined to defeat Napoleon but would this determination have held up under major military defeats? Cracks may very well have appeared.

Not this time. The days of Napoleonic divide-and-conquer strategies were over. The French Army's tactics by this time had been adopted by their enemies, and the French could no longer employ the numbers they once could. Think of the German Heer in 1944-45 compared to the Allies. Lessons learned, and the Germans, while still good (they would never be as bad as the Allies/Soviets were in 1939-1941) had seen their best days pass them by.
 
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