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I tend to look at the settlements therein as Napoleon's greatest mistake, bigger than invading Russia, and certainly more than the Spanish quagmire. The key to French influence in E Europe was a strong Poland and decapitated Prussia. Napoleon should have gutted Prussia until it had nothing but Branderburg; Silesia and East Elbian Prussia should have gone to the grand duchy of Poland. Creation of a strong Poland was a key, a neccessary bulwark against both Both Russian and German hordes. As for Austria, Napoleon should have gone for the kill in the 5th Coalition-- break up the kingdom into Hungary and Bohemia, with Hungardy to play Poland's role in the Balkans. Napoleon's other political mistake was to trust that dynastic liaison with Austria would mean anything; he forgot that he was the Corsican Ogre, a parvenu par excellence, a Court Jew amongst the real monarchies. With his based strengthened and his enemies' weakened beyond repair, even that debacle in Russia would not have led to the Doom at Leipzig. If Prussia was crippled, Stein's reforms didn't matter, not when the population base in the new butt-f**ked Prussia was too small. And so was to be with Austria, with the Chechs and the Hungarians boxing in the rump Austria. (I should note that, by the time of the 5th Coalition, Napoleon did have sufficient ratio of men to force to occupy entire Austria (which he didn't have in the aftermath of Austerlitz), if the Hungarians revolted-- and why not? They still remembered all the Austrian astrocities from 48.) In short, Napoleon's mistake, aside from the basic one of not retreating from Russia when he still had an army, was that he let his enemies live. Napoleon was said to have loved Plutarch. Well, he should have learned the lessens those heroic Romans and Greeks were so eager to teach: You let your enemies live, you end up ruined like Marius or Caesar; you kill until you have no more enemies, you die in sleep in peace, like Sulla. Napoleon should've never gone into Russia with two strong Powers ready to stab in the back.
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