Napoleon was not a mediocre general. Young Napoleon and Old Napoleon are in fact two different Generals. The Man who led the French to victory at Austerlitz is not the same man who led the march on Moscow. Young Napoleon changed the landscape of European warfare with his Use of Artillery and his ability to weaken the enemy lines to a point where numerical superiority meant little. Old Napoleon refused to adapt. He became much more cautious and would not have taken some of the chances which he had taken before.
Napoleon used Tactics devolved by other generals and Perfected them. His ambition and short term mindset (had he contiuned fighting and shooting through his drafts the french population would be facing major hurdles when looking torwards a future germany) those were his downfalls not his strategy
Militarily, not a lot. Napoleon was a very mediocre General. Politically, it's a huge butterfly. Without the Coup of Brumiere, France may remain a radical republic....
So someone who claims to be from England calls Napoleon a medicore General. Real shocking.
Outside your seemingly insane bias, medicore Generals don't have campains like Napoleon did in his 1st Italian campain
or the the 3rd coalition.
For most Generals the campains of the 2nd coalition,
4th coalition,
and even the 1814 defense of France are amazing accomplishments.
The 5th was a victory,
he did a decent job in Egypt,
he was pushing back Spain and Britain in his short time in Spain, and even had a few victories against Prussia and Russia in Germany after invasion of Russia.
At first his genius was unrivaled. It wasn't until he has getting old and arrogant that he started to lose. His enemies learned that if they trade time for space that he was very beatable as a general. Even though France still had the largest Army in the world, in the later years when his enemy armies combined they were far larger and stronger then the French. At his best, no one in his era was a better general.
Iberia qualifies more as a very big political error rather than a military one, I think.
I really don't think America could have taken on Spain which was not invaded and still has it's Empire.His brother Louis was someone in the directorate, so whe still have a Bonaparte in the history books, But ..........
No Joseph on the throne of Naples, Naples remains under the control of the King of Sicily. Britain doesn't get Malta.
No Kingdom of Italy, North Italy remains more divided. Savoy does not get Sardinia at the Congress of Vienna, Duke of Savoy doesn't have the base to become King in the 1860's.
Together -- No Unification of Italy in the 1860~1870's.
No Joseph on the throne of Spain, No Liberal Cortez or Liberal Constitution.
No Exile and Restoration for King Ferdinand VII, No Latin American revolt in the 1810's~1820's
OTL's 1840's Mexican/ American becomes TTL's Spanish/ American war, US takes Cuba, Northern Mexico [Mex cession].
No Second Empire - Great War is Germany/GB v France/Russia
I really don't think America could have taken on Spain which was not invaded and still has it's Empire.
With thousand of Americans, including Sam Huston and ex congressman Daniel Crockett running around Texas fighting the Spanish, I don't think whe would have a chose.
And Whe were ready to fight Spain in the 1850's, just ten years later.
His brother Louis was someone in the directorate, so whe still have a Bonaparte in the history books, But ..........
No Joseph on the throne of Naples, Naples remains under the control of the King of Sicily. Britain doesn't get Malta.
No Kingdom of Italy, North Italy remains more divided. Savoy does not get Sardinia at the Congress of Vienna, Duke of Savoy doesn't have the base to become King in the 1860's.
Together -- No Unification of Italy in the 1860~1870's.
No Joseph on the throne of Spain, No Liberal Cortez or Liberal Constitution.
No Exile and Restoration for King Ferdinand VII, No Latin American revolt in the 1810's~1820's
OTL's 1840's Mexican/ American becomes TTL's Spanish/ American war, US takes Cuba, Northern Mexico [Mex cession].
No Second Empire - Great War is Germany/GB v France/Russia
I doubt Germany would have united without the experience of the Napoleonic Wars and the rise of German nationalism (if not the French Republic tried to invade Germany in the same way Napoleon did, of course). Prussia would also be a lot weaker without all their gains in the industrial rich Rheinland. The whole 1800s would turn out very different.
nitpick; The House of Savoie ruled Sardinia since the 1720s.
Fight Spain? Even the damaged Spain was a far more formidable power than the US. In fact, that's a pretty one sided war. The Spanish will almost certainly win.
This is the same Spain that couldn't hold onto Latin America in face of professional armies of illiterate peasants, isn't it?
Something Spain had in common with UK.