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The Greatest and Most Cunning Military Innovators

Khalid Elhassan February 25, 2022 39 min

8. Napoleon’s Great Organizational Innovation

Napoleon inspects the terrain and battlefield. Extra

Early in his military career, Napoleon spent time in the Bureau of Topography, where he developed an instinct for the ground and terrain. One of the secrets behind his success as a general, routine now but often overlooked before Napoleon, was to simply study the terrain in advance to select the best battlefield. His maxim “know your enemy and know your battlefield better than your enemy“, is as valid today as it was back then. Another of his great innovations was the development of the corps system.

Napoleon organized his divisions into corps of 20,000 to 40,000 men, which were essentially mini armies that contained infantry, cavalry, engineers, and artillery. In his campaigns, the different corps, each headed by a marshal, would march on a broad front, likened to the outstretched fingers of a hand. When one corps made contact with the foe, it would give battle and try to fix him in place. In the meantime, the other corps closed in on the enemy and turned the outstretched fingers into a closed fist.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.