NAPOLEON’S CROSSING THE ALPS STRATEGY

NAPOLEON’S CROSSING THE ALPS STRATEGY In this section, I will examine one of my favorite Napoleon strategies: the crossing of the Alps. I believe it's an ideal strategy to address all the mentioned categories. Context: The War of the Second Coalition is about to begin, and Napoleon, who has just returned from his campaign in Egypt, needs to design a strategy to start the conflict with an advantage. The situation is as follows: * An imposing army of 120,000 soldiers is in Germany. * Another formidable army of 100,000 soldiers is in Italy, near southern France. Both aim to attack France. In response, Napoleon sends two armies: one under the command of Moreau towards the army in Germany and the other under Masséna towards southern France, in northern Italy. However, this is not the final strategy, as it is still in the process of preparation. The Strategy: The essence and goal of Napoleon's strategy is to find a way to surprise the enemy. It doesn't matter if Germany is more relevant or any other factor; he aims to impact the adversary. Thus, he will come up with the brilliant idea of using Hannibal's strategy of crossing the Alps to surprise his opponents. Although the main strategy will be to cross the Alps, Napoleon's divergent thinking will lead to a significant change in this strategy. The Problem with the Strategy: Despite the goal of surprising the enemy with the Alpine crossing, the strategy had a major drawback due to logistical losses, as seen in Hannibal's …