Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte took part in 9 wars:
 * 1) First Italian campaign (1796–97)
 * 2) Egyptian expedition (1798–1801)
 * 3) War of the Third Coalition
 * 4) War of the Fourth Coalition
 * 5) Peninsular War
 * 6) War of the Fifth Coalition
 * 7) Invasion of Russia
 * 8) War of the Sixth Coalition
 * 9) Hundred Days

Battle of Caldiero (1796) where Napoleon failed to defeat inferior forces
Bonaparte sent a total of 13,000 men to attack Hohenzollern's 12000 men. Masséna drove against the Austrian right and Augereau attacked the Austrian left, The Austrians, who had fortified themselves in several villages, sturdily resisted the French assaults. A violent rain and hail storm blew in the faces of the French troops, making it difficult for them to prime their muskets. At mid-day, Masséna began making headway on the Austrian right. In the afternoon, the brigades of Generals-major Adolf Brabeck and Anton Schübirz von Chobinin arrived on the field. Soon the Austrians forced back Masséna. Provera also appeared and drove back Augereau.

Siege of Acre (1799) where Napoleon failed to capture Acre
The French attempted to lay siege on 20 March using only their infantry. The French had 13000 and Acre was only defended by 4000. Napoleon believed the city would capitulate quickly to him. In correspondence with one of his subordinate officers he voiced his conviction that a mere two weeks would be necessary to capture Acre. After Napoleon's earlier conquest of Jaffa, rampaging French troops had savagely sacked the conquered city, and thousands of Albanian prisoners of war were massacred on the sea-shore, prior to the French move further northwards. These facts were well known to the townspeople and defending troops (many of them Albanians) in Acre, and the prospect is likely to have stiffened their resistance. By early May, replacement French siege artillery had arrived overland and a breach was forced in the defences. At the culmination of the assault, the besieging forces managed to make a breach in the walls. However, after suffering many casualties to open this entry-point, Napoleon's soldiers found, on trying to penetrate the city, that Farhi and DePhelipoux had, in the meantime, built a second wall, several feet deeper within the city where al-Jazzar's garden was. Having underestimated the stubborn attitude of the defending forces combined with a British blockade of French supply harbours and harsh weather conditions, Napoleon's forces were left hungry, cold and damp. Finally, the siege was raised. Napoleon Bonaparte retreated two months later on 21 May after a failed final assault on 10 May, and withdrew to Egypt.

Battle of Trafalgar in which the British totally defeated the French fleet
Nelson had his ships turn perpendicular rather than sail parallel to the French and Spanish fleets, and thus was able to gain conclusive victory. This meant the Royal Navy gained control of the seas.

Battle of Eylau in which the Napoleon suffered heavy losses but gained nothing
After 14 hours of continuous battle, there was still no result but enormous loss of life. The French had gained possession of the battlefield — nothing but a vast expanse of bloodstained snow and frozen corpses — but they had suffered enormous losses and failed to destroy the Russian army. A bloody stalemate.

Siege of Cádiz where Napoleon failed to capture Cadiz
The port of Cádiz was surrounded on land by the armies of Soult and Victor, in three entrenched positions at Chiclana, Puerto Real and Santa Maria, positioned in a semicircle around the city. The resulting bombardment of the Spanish coastal city involved some of the largest artillery pieces in existence at the time, including Grand Mortars, which were so large they had to be abandoned when the French eventually retreated, and fired projectiles to distances previously thought impossible, some up to 3 miles in range.In the Battle of Barrosa a single British division defeated two French divisions and captured a regimental eagle.

Betrayal of Spain and subsequently failing to defeat Spanish guerillas
Under the pretext of a reinforcement of the Franco-Spanish army occupying Portugal, Napoleon invaded Spain as well, replaced Charles IV with his brother Joseph and placed his brother-in-law Joachim Murat in Joseph's stead at Naples. This led to resistance from the Spanish army and civilians in the Dos de Mayo Uprising. Although Napoleon left 300,000 of his finest troops to battle Spanish guerrillas as well as British and Portuguese forces commanded by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, French control over the peninsula again deteriorated.

Battle of Aspern-Essling where Napoleon failed to cross the Danube
The whole of the French center, with Lannes on the left and the cavalry in reserve, moved forward. The Austrian line was broken through, between Rosenberg's right and Hohenzollern's left. Victory was almost won when the Archduke brought up his last reserve, leading his soldiers with a colour in his hand. Lannes was checked, and with his repulse the impetus of the attack died out all along the line. Aspern had been lost, and the news reached Napoleon at the critical moment. The Danube bridges, which had broken down once already, had been cut by heavy barges, which had been sent drifting down stream by the Austrians. Napoleon at once suspended the attack. Essling now fell to another assault of Rosenberg, and the French drove him out again. Rosenberg then directed his efforts on the flank of the French center, slowly retiring on the edges. The retirement was terribly costly, but Lannes stopped the French from being driven into the Danube. Complete exhaustion of both sides ended the fighting. The French lost over 20,000 men including one of Napoleon's ablest field commanders and close friend, Marshal Jean Lannes.

Disastrous Invasion of Russia where Napoleon's army was completely destroyed
At nearly half a million strong, the Grande Armée marched through Western Russia, winning a number of relatively minor engagements and a major battle at Smolensk on August 16–18. However, on that same day, the right wing of the Russian Army, under the command of General Peter Wittgenstein, stopped part of the French Army, led by Marshal Nicolas Oudinot, in the Battle of Polotsk. This prevented the French marching on the Russian capital at Saint Petersburg; the fate of the war had to be decided on the Moscow front, where Napoleon himself led his forces. The Battle of Borodino was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; it involved more than 250,000 soldiers and resulted in at least 70,000 casualties. The French captured the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army. Moreover, the French could not replace their losses whereas the Russians could replace theirs. Napoleon entered Moscow on September 14, after the Russian Army had again retreated. But by then the Russians had largely evacuated the city and even released criminals from the prisons to inconvenience the French; furthermore, the governor, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, ordered the city to be burnt. Alexander I refused to capitulate and the peace talks that Napoleon initiated failed. In October, with no clear sign of victory in sight, Napoleon began his disastrous Great Retreat from Moscow. At the Battle of Maloyaroslavets the French tried to reach Kaluga, where they could find food and forage supplies. But the replenished Russian Army blocked the road, and Napoleon was forced to retreat the same way he had come to Moscow, through the heavily ravaged areas along the Smolensk road. In the following weeks, the Grande Armée underwent catastrophic blows from the onset of the Russian Winter, the lack of supplies and constant guerilla warfare by Russian peasants and irregular troops. When the remnants of Napoleon's army crossed the Berezina River in November, only 27,000 fit soldiers remained; the Grand Armée had lost some 380,000 men dead and 100,000 captured. Napoleon then abandoned his men and returned to Paris to protect his position as Emperor and to prepare to resist the advancing Russians. The campaign effectively ended on 14 December 1812, when the last French troops left Russia. The French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. It reduced the French and allied invasion forces (the Grande Armée) to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe. The reputation of Napoleon as an undefeated military genius was severely shaken, while the French Empire's former allies, at first Prussia and then the Austrian Empire, broke their alliance with France and switched camps, which triggered the War of the Sixth Coalition.

Battle of Leipzig where Napoleon was completely and utterly defeated
Following the end of the armistice Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden, where he defeated a numerically-superior allied army and inflicted enormous casualties, while sustaining relatively few. However at about the same time Oudinot's thrust towards Berlin was beaten back and Napoleon himself, lacking reliable and numerous cavalry, was unable to fully take advantage of his victory. He withdrew with around 175,000 troops to Leipzig in Saxony where he thought he could fight a defensive action against the Allied armies converging on him. There, at the so-called Battle of Nations (16 October–19 1813) a French army, ultimately reinforced to 191,000, found itself faced by three Allied armies converging on it, ultimately totalling more than 330,000 troops. Napoleon saw that the battle was a lost cause and on the night of 18–19 October, he began to withdraw the majority of his army across the river Elster. The battle ended the First French Empire's presence east of the Rhine and brought the German states over to the Coalition. The Coalition pressed its advantage and invaded France in early 1814. Napoleon was forced from the throne of France and exiled to the island of Elba.

Battle of Waterloo which ended Napoleon's political and military career
It was at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 that the decisive battle of the campaign took place. The start of the battle was delayed for several hours as Napoleon waited until the ground had dried from the previous night’s rain. By late afternoon the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington’s forces from the escarpment on which they stood. Once the Prussians arrived, attacking the French right flank in ever increasing numbers, Napoleon’s key strategy of keeping the Seventh Coalition armies divided had failed and his army was driven from the field in confusion, by a combined coalition general advance. On the morning of 18 June 1815 Napoleon sent orders to Marshal Grouchy, commander of the right wing of the Army of the North, to harass the Prussians to stop them reforming. These orders arrived at around 06:00 and his corps began to move out at 08:00; by 12:00 the cannon from the Battle of Waterloo could be heard. Grouchy’s corps commanders, especially Gérard, advised that they should "march to the sound of the guns". As this was contrary to Napoleon’s orders ("you will be the sword against the Prussians’ back driving them through Wavre and join me here") Grouchy decided not to take the advice. It became apparent that neither Napoleon nor Marshal Grouchy understood that the Prussian army was no longer either routed or disorganised. Historian Victor Davis Hanson writes, "After all, the military record is unquestioned—17 years of wars, perhaps six million Europeans dead, France bankrupt, her overseas colonies lost."

Conclusion: Not a great commander.