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These Respected Figures Were Also Some of the Weirdest People in History

Khalid Elhassan August 8, 2022 39 min

21. Being Crazy Did Not Stop Blucher From Putting the Kibbosh on Napoleon

The Prussians, led by Blucher, rally from defeat to march upon Waterloo. The Waterloo Association

Blucher might have been weird and out and out crazy, but that did not reduce his effectiveness as a fighting general. Indeed, he proved himself to be Prussia’s best general of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and bounced back from setback after setback. In 1813, he played a key role at the head of a Prussian-Russian army in handing Napoleon a major defeat at the Battle of Leipzig – the biggest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. Two years later, on June 16^th, 1815, he bounced back from a serious battlefield loss at Ligny, from which he miraculously escaped with his life, and shaped history.

Blucher and Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. Situation Excellent

Instead of retreat, Blucher led his defeated but still game army on a forced march to link up with Wellington at Waterloo. He arrived two days later, on the 18^th, in the nick of time to fall upon Napoleon’s flank and crush him. That aggressiveness and determination are why the Prussians hung on to Blucher, despite all his weird, crazy, and manic moments. As his chief of staff, Scharnhorst, wrote him on one occasion: “You are our leader and our hero“, and insisted that he head the Prussian Army “even if you have to be carried before or behind us on a litter“. On another occasion, he put it even more succinctly: “He must lead even if he has a hundred elephants inside him“.

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.