Master of the Mind: The Genius of Napoleon Bonaparte

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Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington were the two most storied soldiers of their time. Their epic clash at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 was the culmination of decades of warfare between France and Britain as those two great empires competed to become the world’s most dominant power. Although Wellington ultimately won that battle, ensuring that the 19th century would belong to Great Britain, the legacy of the Emperor of the French never faded away. As Wellington replied when asked who the greatest captain of the age was, “In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.”1

Born on August 15, 1769, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, Napoleon was indeed one of the mightiest military masterminds ever to walk the earth, fighting 60 battles and sieges and losing only seven of those. Driven by his remarkable military talents, his incredible charisma and force of will, and a host of other qualities, Napoleon rose from a penniless political refugee to the Emperor of a vast empire. 

I’ve always marveled at Napoleon’s remarkable mental agility, his intense powers of concentration, and his inexhaustible capacity for work, skills that he put to good use as he carried out the myriad duties required to administer his empire. “Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard,” explained Napoleon. “When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another.”2

For example, the night before the Battle of Borodino in September 1812, which became the bloodiest single day in the history of warfare until the First World War over a century later, Napoleon somehow found the time and energy to sit down and write the rules for a girls’ school that he wanted to set up in Saint-Denis, just outside Paris. 

On an earlier occasion, Napoleon marched his army over 600 miles from the Channel coast at Boulogne across the Rhine and Danube Rivers en route to his legendary victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805. Even while directing the pinpoint movements of thousands of troops in the buildup to that battle, the Emperor still managed the small details of his empire, such as writing to the prefect of Genoa and telling him to stop taking his mistress to the opera.  

Those anecdotes are just a few of the many examples of Napoleon’s incredible brainpower.

For an epic, highly detailed, illuminating account of Napoleon’s story that you will find hard to put down, I highly recommend Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts.

Notes:

1. Quoted in Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (Viking, 2014), xxviii.

2. Roberts, 104.

Bibliography:

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. Viking, 2014.