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Napoleon's Marshals Part 4 Early Access (Patreon)

Published:
2020-12-11 20:30:22
Edited:
2020-12-12 20:54:01
Imported:
2026-06

Videos

Content

Terror belli, Decus pacis... 

It's that time again - the next installment of Napoleon's Marshals is available for Patreon early access right now, and I hope you enjoy it.  

Two quick things to say, which I hope will not cause too much disappointment: this episode only has 3 Marshals, not 4 as promised. That's only because I'm going into more detail about the big players, so don't worry, still plenty of history! Secondly, I always aim to provide a week of Patreon early access, but in this case, it's only until Sunday (the sponsor is eager to let people know about their business in time for Christmas. Incidentally, their business is selling fine-looking Napoleonic replica swords among other things, so you may be interested in having a look.)

'Merch for typos' is in effect - first person to spot one gets a free item of their choice from the shop. I've checked the title card this time, so it won't be as easy ;). De Rioseco/Del Rioseco does not count. 

Lastly - about my brief use of the Marseillaise. I know Napoleon hated it (or feared it?)! But I think it works here, as a little wink to iconic French imagery and music. But let me know what you think. By the way here's an interesting article about Napoleon and the Marseillaise if you'd like some further reading.

And here is the Youtube link... 

I hope you enjoy the video, and thank you all again for your amazing support. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these latest rankings. I'll post the YouTube link as soon as it's ready, and I'll be back next week with an update about a top secret, non-Napoleonic new video..

Toby

Files

Napoleon's Marshals Part 4

Exclusive Patreon early access

Comments

Sitraka Forler

Ho ho !!! Yeeees finally 😁😁😁

Joseph Dell

Yes! What a way to start my weekend!

Sindre

Been waiting whole day for it to drop , merci!

Rick Reactions

Brilliant production quality as always Toby. Like with Marshal Suchet, both Marshal MacDonald's and Bessiéres military leadership and accomplishments have been seriously overlooked. It's good that they are getting highlighted for once. Also extremely interesting to hear about all the unique relationships these Marshals had with Napoleon. Can't wait for the next part already! :)

Luca Schneider

Amazing Video cant wait for the next one

vren55

Note for others: Below six are the marshals that are left and oh boy this is a close race. Louis-Nicolas Davout Michel Ney Louis-Gabriel Suchet Louis-Alexandre Berthier Jean Lannes Jean-de-Dieu Soult I did NOT expect Soult to be on the list but... , I don't research this for a living so XD Also a pity that he isn't a marshal so we can't assess him, but how did Eugène de Beauharnais compare?

Lewis C

SO SO GOOD THANK YOU

vren55

Educated guess at the rankings.... 6. Berthier: Napoleon's chief of staff was supremely valuable to the Grand Armee and Napoleon but not a great field commander or at independent command for that matter. 5. Soult: Strong strategist but repeatedly defeated by Wellington in Spain and also a greedy bastard to boot. 3-4. By this point it gets to be a tossup b/c the lines are too close. Suchet or Lannes possibly. Both strong field commanders with high energy and a talent for commanding troops and able to take independent command. I'd say Lannes edges out because he got more opportunities for corps command, but Suchet is formidable and got to show his stuff for longer (because well he lived). 2. Ney. I mean, what else can you say, for his faults, Ney had a LOT more to lose the times he was given independence of action. 1. Davout. I can't figure out if this dude actually made a mistake b/c Davout was basically in the thick of it through everything and was always given the hardest shit as 3rd corps commander.

Sean Leavey

26:28, "Massena" should be "Masséna". Took me until the last minute to find a typo ;-) Fantastic work as always!

The Lordz

Absolutely amazing video. Thank you Toby for your great work. You deserve a marshal's baton too. ))

Evan Lloyd

Davout #1 and Bernadotte last for actions at Auerstedt alone.

vren55

I don't think I'd ever want to like... meet/know Davout though b/c god he seemed like a hardass, but that's possibly why he was so good at his job

CJ Tabunda III

I really wish that Masséna and MacDonald should have been ranked higher.

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

Bernadotte was #18. I assume you subscribe to the popular notion of what happened, or rather, what did not happen, with I Corps that day in not going to either battle?

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

As usual, Toby, outstanding work. Very well balanced and nuanced view of a couple overlooked Marshals. MacDonald gets double praise for his battlefield exploits and his training of Eugene and turning him into a very good general. Bessieres is often overlooked and was derided by some of his colleagues as someone that should never have received a division command much less a baton. But he proved them wrong on numerous occasions. And he died as he lived: Brave and Loyal!

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

And, I must say, I am surprised Ney is being regarded so highly. For sure he is the ultimate Napoleonic Marshal, but he had many big blunders. A few of them were quite costly and cost Napoleon his crown (Bautzen, Dresden and Dennewitz).

bozojazz

Great work as always! So awesome that you're covering the Marshals. Curious to see where Suchet lands. He had few if any strategic screwups given his assignment in Spain, pacified the populace in Aragon, crushing Spanish armies and took fortresses but he never faced Wellington in the field. He's like St. Cyr in that he's another "what if".

Astra Solace

Part 5 would be ranks 4-6. I reckon Berthier & Suchet to be in it yet.

Diego Velazquez Saloux

Excellent work as always! One truly wonders how some of the earlier Imperial campaigns would have gone had MacDonald been recognized earlier. Small point, wouldn’t Macdonald be rendered as MacDonald at around 16:05?

A.G

Letsss gooo 🕺🏽🕺🏽🕺🏽

Gavin Gates

Davout was so loyal to Napoleon that he wouldn’t even warn his own family if he was ordered to attack Paris

Alex Lower

Awesome work! Possible error: last list of marshals lacks numbers for these three - not sure if it's intentional. Also, is Massena the "sweet" child of victory or "spoiled" - or both?

Stuart Carver

Great video as always 🙂 massena was in Poland 1 year after overthrowing naples in 1806 not 2 years as stated at 21.45

Gavin Anand Saint Just Brown

Really admire MacDonald. Incorruptible, knew where his loyalties lay, and ultimately put country before any one man.

EpicHistoryTV

Thank you, very glad you enjoyed it! And yes Charles certainly does.

EpicHistoryTV

They both got slightly lower rankings because they were only active Marshals for a limited part of the Empire. Napoleon even said that Masséna 'might as well have been dead' after 1810. Not a very sympathetic comment from the Emperor, but fairly typical.

EpicHistoryTV

Thank you Seb, glad you enjoyed! I was particularly impressed by Macdonald, the more I read about him. I nearly put him above Masséna, but Rene was very clear in his opinions on this one, so I deferred! What's also worth mentioning is that Macdonald served as a Marshal in all the toughest campaigns - 1809 onwards, when the Coalition powers had learned how to fight Napoleon. No easy victories for him - just difficult campaigns in virtually impossible strategic situations.

EpicHistoryTV

Yes, he was a solid commander who was unfairly sidelined. At least Napoleon acknowledged his error at the last moment. His name is always given as 'Macdonald' in the sources I've been using.

EpicHistoryTV

Thank you, very glad you enjoyed it. I think Macdonald gets my vote for most honourable Marshal. I had originally intended that he would get a shorter section, but the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to share!

EpicHistoryTV

Yes, two more episodes, 3 in each. Eugène is a very interesting case - you'll note that he was one of the generals I name-checked in Part 1. I would argue that he was certainly as effective, if not better, than 'middle-ranking' Marshals like Oudinot and Marmont. He certainly would have been a Marshal if the Empire had lasted a few more. I presume it was his youth that counted against him.

EpicHistoryTV

I won't say too much about this for fear of plot-spoilers! But just a couple of things - Davout was not the perfect general of Napoleonic legend: the reports about him during the Russian retreat, post-Vyazma, are very unflattering. Napoleon talked of him 'going to pieces'. Not to say that he was not a brilliant commander, only that he was human. And regarding Bernadotte at (or rather not at) Auerstedt, I find this article very interesting, detailed and persuasive: https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/battles/c_bern.html

EpicHistoryTV

I think, deep down, I always knew it would be an accent... Thank you, and congratulations, you win typo prize! I will message you for details..

EpicHistoryTV

Thanks Alex! Yes I will add numbers, this was a mistake, but you just miss typo prize this time. Masséna's nickname is curious - most secondary sources translate the French as 'dear child' or 'sweet child' of victory. Even the chapter in Napoleon's Marshals (ed.David Chandler) which is a major source for this series is called 'Dear Child of Victory'. However, a footnote adds that 'most reliable authorities' (unspecified) use the word gâté, which means spoilt. So this is what I went with.

EpicHistoryTV

Thank you Stuart, good spot! I'll get this fixed.

EpicHistoryTV

Absolutely, in my opinion, probably the most admirable of them all.

Anna

As for McDonald’s escape at Leipzig - he crossed the Elster not by swimming, but climbing improvised gangway - cut tree trunk placed by the French soldiers across the river. The Polish officer Jakub Redel used the same way of escape, following McDonald, and left the description of it in his Memoires

Anna

PS The episode was great, looking forward to watch the new ones!

EpicHistoryTV

Very glad you enjoyed it! Yes that's true, but he fell in before he reached the other side! I used this section from Macdonald's memoirs in the Battle of Leipzig video. So I suppose walked, fell, floundered and swam across the Elster...

Elisabeth Chan

I hope I’m not late for this comment but this video was brilliant as always (I must confess that I watched this like KPop fangirls watching their idols going live lol). I see you’re also like me who has slowly Macfallen (been using this word whenever I describe how MacDonald became one of my second favourite marshal besides Ney) the more you read about him👀 One thing I got to point out is that his every-day first name was actually “Alexandre” (source: “The French MacDonald: Journey of a Marshal of Napoléon in the Highlands and the Islands of Scotland in 1825” by Jean-Didier Hache), not “Jacques” (like what is shown on his English Wikipedia page—his full name was Jacques Étienne Joseph Alexandre MacDonald), but anyways, it’s a very nice, brief bio on him that I wished there’s more because he is a very interesting figure who deserves a biography of his own :3 From a reply of yours in a comment on an earlier post regarding to which marshals will be appearing in this video, I see you’ve finished the script on Ney so I am so much suspecting that he’s going to be there in the next video and I am so patiently waiting🙂

Trevor Yau

Another fantastic video! I have no issues with the use of the Marseillaise, I honestly wish there were more music that universally evokes the images of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. I suppose the 1812 overture is the only other piece.

EpicHistoryTV

I'm very glad you enjoyed it! You are absolutely right about me and Macdonald, he seems admirable in so many regards. Interesting about his first name - English sources tend to use Étienne, but French sources Jacques, so I followed the latter. But it seems both are wrong, in a way!

EpicHistoryTV

Thank you Trevor! It's such a stirring tune, after all - the only national anthem I have ever added to a playlist! If you've never seen Abel Gance's 'Napoleon', it's worth it for the Marseillaise sequence alone.

Maggie Scott

Will you be covering The Big Six in a single episode, or split them into two? I'd think two episodes would be better, given the amount of material devoted to them. I'm not a Ney fan, but he had so few "time outs" during this entire era that covering it all, even superficially, would take half an hour. The same for Berthier, who issued orders from 1800 until the Hundred Days, although I remain a bit skeptical about how his role as chief of staff will unroll. What would one say here: At the Battle of Austerlitz, Berthier outdid himself in getting more than 150 orders to the proper recipients from before dawn until late that afternoon? Or Berthier's deluge of clear, concise orders set up the stage for [fill in the blank] and ensured its success?

Elisabeth Chan

Yeah! I checked French Wikipedia again and it says “Étienne MacDonald” haha He just got so much first names that websites just got confused with its order (it’s either “Étienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre MacDonald” or “Jacques Étienne Joseph Alexandre MacDonald” and the latter seemed to be the correct one) By the way just found out that he got a disney duck version (found that in Scrooge McDuck wikia) 😂😂😂😂😂

Darko

"There are fourteen of us!" no f*cks given :)

Lewis C

my pleasure! do you have any more details on how napoleon was so bad at shooting he managed to half blind someone haha

Lewis C

was he basically saying 14 is too many for it to be special? sounds like quite a conceited thing to say (which i guess isn't a surprise since we're talking about massena). I mean, 14 really isn't that many people haha. should still have felt honoured in my opinion

Lewis C

shame poniatowski wasnt so fortunate

Lewis C

yeah im inclined to agree. very mixed record.

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

Toby, I agree with you on Davout, he is great. But he made mistakes... like they all did. There is no perfect general. I'd take him over the others though... except maybe Suchet. As for the Bernadotte Jena/Auerstadt thing, yeah, that is a very good write up and also my conclusion based off reading a number of different perspectives on the matter. Ultimately I find accusations that he wasn't at either battle very odd: That was the whole point of his place in Napoleon's plans to be a blocking force. Davout and he were supposed to lay astride the Prussian line of retreat. He also had no reason to think Davout was in contact with the main Prussian Army when, as he and Napoleon thought they understood things, the King and Army were engaged at Jena. Sounds of battle are not persuasive because there was a chance Davout would be engaged in any event as a blocking force coming in contact with some elements of the Prussian Army in retreat. There was no reason for Bernadotte to think things had been cocked up when Napoleon's plan appeared to be unfolding perfectly to say nothing of the Main Prussian Army not being where it was supposed to be. Ultimately that conclusion is correct: The error for Davout being alone with the main Prussian Army lies with Berthier's carelessness with the orders (funny how Bernadotte always seems to be the Marshal that doesn't receive orders), the equivocal nature of the verbal order communicated to Davout to Bernadotte, and the fact that Napoleon misjudged the location of the Prussian Army. People make the post-mortem mistake of assuming Bernadotte knew what we know after the fact. At the time there was no reason for him to deviate from his orders and no reason to suspect things were not going as planned. Finally, regarding Napoleon's post-battle censure... people need to realize that Napoleon was as much a politician as he was a military leader. And that Bernadotte was a rival, perhaps in top three of his most dangerous rivals. Napoleon had two reasons to castigate Bernadotte for not helping Davout even though he was following orders: 1) To pin the blame on his miscalculation of the Prussian main army on someone else, 2) To take a rival down a peg. Records indicate it was days after the battle that Napoleon even knew something had happened. As far as he was concerned, until Davout brought it to his attention, Bernadotte did as ordered, if not slowly. It wasn't until after Davout met Napoleon and heaped recriminations on "your wretched Ponte Corvo" that he began blaming Bernadotte for his absence. So in others words, he found a useful opportunity to place the blame for the misplacing the Prussians and to take a popular rival down a peg or two. In the end I don't even think Bernadotte was slow in getting to Apolda or that he was generally slothful. The major victories of his early career were typified by aggressive and rapid maneuver. Moreover, his pursuit of the Prussians and his victories at Halle and then Lubeck were anything but slow, slothful or hesitant. I digress though. We are always re-fighting the Bernadotte battle. Great episode 4!

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

That is a very good point on the timing. Moreover, as you said earlier, MacDonald should get credit, a lot of credit, for helping train and mould Eugene into an effective general. Moreover, had MacDonald been more political, or my craven, he would have been made Marshal a lot earlier by ingratiating himself with Napoleon. But if he had done that he would not have been the man of integrity and character everyone knew him to be!

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

As a former staff officer myself I can tell you that no army can function well without a good staff section. And, in Berthier's case he was absolutely indispensable even if he slipped up on occasion. The French had no methodical staff system like the Prussians later did. It was all on Berthier and his absence more or less doomed the 100 Days to failure.

Crown Prince Sebastian Johan of Ponte Corvo

Pretty much. 14 is not many but if one considers that throughout French military history one rarely has more than 2-3 at a time so 14 seemed like a lot.

EpicHistoryTV

Definitely two episodes! They're working out about 8-9 minutes per Marshal now, and even that is only enough time to summarise the achievements of some of the more successful ones.

EpicHistoryTV

Yup, Masséna didn't regard some of the younger Marshals - Davout, for example! - to be in the same league as him. Based on their achievements by 1804, he had a point!

EpicHistoryTV

I haven't seen any more details, but apparently he was notorious!

Lewis C

I see 😂

Lewis C

Will you be including 'Viking' from Filmstro in the last episodes by any chance? No epic video feels complete without it (if it fits with the video of course)

Lewis C

brilliant

AnthonyBlessed

I've noticed that Charles Nove has continuously improved his pronunciation skills, especially of his French. Its great to see, and increases the desireability of these videos, hearing the correct pronunciation of the various words in different languages. Good work Charles! I appreciate your dedication to the craft. Thank God for what He has given you.