Why Did Napoleon Invade Russia? A Study in Motivation and the ...

Why Did Napoleon Invade Russia? A Study in Motivation and the Interrelations of Personality and Social Structure Author(s): Harold T. Parker Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 131-146 Published by: Society for Military History Stable URL: . Accessed: 07/01/2013 14:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@. .

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Whydid Napoleon Invade Russia? A Studyin Motivationand the Interrelationos f Personality and Social Structure*

*

HaroldT. Parker

"Your character and mine are opposed. You like to cajole

people and obey their ideas. Moi, I like for them to please me

and obey mine."

Napoleon to Joseph, March 1814.

"You ideologues, you act according to a system,prepared in

advance. Moi, I am a practical person, I seize events and I push

themas far as theywill go. "

Napoleon to Dalberg, 1806.

"I am of the race thatfounds empires."

THIS essay is an interimreport on an ongoing reconnoiteringre-

search expeditioninto Napoleon's foreignpolicies, a workingpaper if you please. It attempts to answer tentativelythree questions that arose in theinquiry.In thesummerof 1982, when I was writinga series ofbiographical articles forOwen Connelly's Historical Dictionary of Napoleonic France, I noted to myastonishmentthatNapoleon's closest and most trustedcounselors advised against an invasion of Russia. From 1810, Jean-Jacques Regis de Cambaceres, archchancellor, in effectNapoleon's chiefjudicial officera,nd duringNapoleon's absences fromParissupervisoroftheroutineofadministrationA; rmand-AugustinLouis Caulaincourt, ambassador to Tsar Alexander (1807-1811) and

'The originalversionofthisarticlewas presentedin a sessionoftheBicentennial MeetingoftheConsortiumon RevolutionaryEurope,28-30 September1989 at FloridaState Universityand thatversionappeared in theBicentennialProceedingspublishedby FloridaState UniversityPress(1990).

TheJournal ofMilitaryHistory54(April 1990): 131-46 G AmericanMilitaryInstitute*

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HAROLD T. PARKER

then as grand master of horse personally responsible forNapoleon's safety;Jean-Baptistede Nompere de Champagny,ministeroftheinterior (1804-1807) and of foreignaffairs(1807-1811); Pierre-AntoineNoel-Bruno Daru, in Napoleon's viewhis ablest administrator,after17 April1811 ministerofstate charged withthe daily expedition of Napoleon's correspondence; Geraud-Christophe-MicheDl uroc, whose duties as grand marshal of the palace brought him into daily contact with Napoleon; Jean-Gerard Lacuee, who as indefatigableministerof the administrationof war undertook the gigantic task of organizing the supply of the 650,000-man invasion force; and Jacques-AlexandreBernardLaw, comte de Lauriston,one of Napoleon's favoriteaides-decamp who in 1811 succeeded Caulaincourt as ambassador to Tsar Alexander-all gravelywarnedNapoleon againstan invasionofRussia.' Whydid Napoleon overrulethemand proceed? Thatis thefirstquestion.

Then, in an article,"Napoleon Reconsidered," publishedin French Historical Studies in 1987 but prepared in 1984, I projected a brief interpretivepsychosocial biographyof Napoleon thatwould integrate him into the ongoing Corsican, French, and international European societies in whichhe moved, withemphasis on his values and those of environingsocial structures.To relatehim to Corsican society,the first one he entered,provednot too difficultt,hanksto thelabors ofFernand Beaucour, Dorothy Carrington,Jean Defranceschi, Thadd Hall, and Ange Rovere. Nor did his relations to the French army, his second home, offertoo much difficultysi,nce thefieldhad been alreadyopened up by Jean Bertaud,David Chandler, Owen Connelly,Andre Corvisier, Donald Horward,John Elting,John Lynn, Samuel Scott, and many others. Here, of course, we are dealing withthree French armies, the changing royal army of the last two decades of the Old Regime, the popular revolutionaryforceoftheearly 1790s, and theimperialprofessional army Napoleon himselfdid much to create. Similarly,international diplomacy,into whichtheyoung Bonaparte was thrownin 1796, has been the subject ofbrilliantdescriptionand analysis fromGarrett Mattinglyand AlbertSorel to Andre Fugier,Orville Murphy,and Paul Schroeder. It remained only to inquire how did Napoleon's personality relate to the diplomatic structuresand values that have been so ably nortraved?

1. See HaroldT. Parker",Cambaceres," "Caulaincourt,""Champagny,""Daru," "Duroc," "Diplomacy,""Napoleon I, Daily Round,"and supportingreferencesin Owen Connelly,Historical Dictionary of Napoleonic France (Westport,Conn.: GreenwoodPress,1985), 94, 103, 104-5, 143, 154-55, 160, 286-87, 357-58.

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WhyDid Napoleon Invade Russia?

That endeavor led to a thirdquestion. At another consortium on RevolutionaryEurope, when I happened to mention thatI was working on Napoleon's foreignpolicy, Paul Schroeder observed, "But did he have one? Or even policies?" We shall see.2

I

Suppose we firstremind ourselves of the continuing, underlying dispositions of Napoleon's personality,then recall the structuresof internationalpoliticsat theclose oftheeighteenthcentury,and finally interrelatethe two,personalityand structures.

Witha smile, let us followcurrentfashionand startwiththe prenatal lifeof our hero.3 Recent articles have warned pregnant American women to be carefulabout which televisionprogramstheywatch, for the fetusis listeningtoo and afterbirthwillresonate to programsithas previouslyheard. Be thatas it may, Napoleon's elder brotherJoseph, born on 8 January1768, was the outcome ofa relativelytranquilpregnancy and was a smiling,happybaby whoautomaticallycharmed everyone who approached him. Napoleon, as a fetus,had a veryhard rideas his mother,Letizia, six months pregnant,seated on a mule, fledfrom French troopsoverthe rockyCorsican mountain trails.A scrawnybaby withspindlylegs and an abnormallylarge head, he repelled those who viewed him and had to win theirattention and respect withan effort.

2. For the formulationof the questions I am deeply indebted to OrvilleT. Murphy'sCharles Gravier,Comtede VergennesF: renchDiplomacy in theAgeof Vergennes1719-1 787 (Albany:StateUniversitoyfNewYorkPress,1982) and Paul WalterSchroeder'skeynoteaddress,"The European InternationalSystem,17891848: Is There a Problem?An Answer"in Proceedings of the Consortium on RevolutionaryEurope 1985 (Athens,Ga.: Consortiumon RevolutionaryEurope, 1986), 2-26. Theyare not responsible,ofcourse,fortheanswersI haveoffered.

3. Theseparagraphson Napoleon's personalityare a distillationofseveralofmy articleson Napoleon's lifeand psychology": Napoleon and Conquered Territories 1805-1807," SouthAtlanticQuarterly51 (1952): 70-84; "The FormationofNapoleon's PersonalityA: n ExploratoryEssay,"French Historical Studies, 1971-1972, 6-26; "Symposium-Napoleon: CivilExecutiveand Revolutionary,P"roceedingsof the Consortium on RevolutionaryEurope 1972 (Gainesville,Fla.: Universityof FloridaPress,1973), 18-49; "Napoleon's ChangingSelf-ImageA: Sketch,"Proceedings oftheConsortiumon RevolutionaryEurope 1983 (Athens,Ga.: Consortium on RevolutionaryEurope, 1985), 446-63; "Napoleon Reconsidered:An Invitation to Inquiryand Reflection,"French Historical Studies 14 (1987): 142-56; "The Writingof 'The Formationof Napoleon's Personality':A FruitfuCl ollaboration," ProceedingsoftheConsortiumon RevolutionaryEurope 1989 (in press).Addto theseand theirreferences,DorothyCarrington,Napoleon and His Parentson the ThresholdofHistory(London, 1988).

MILITARY HISTORY

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HAROLD T. PARKER

Letizia's milkforonce failedher,and he was placed witha wet nurse in a back room whileJoseph remained in the parents'bedroom untilthe thirdchild, Maria-Anna,arrivedin 1771. When at age two Napoleon emerged,so to speak, fromtheback room,he could probablysense that he was excluded fromthe more intimaterelationsexistingbetween his motherand his father,Carlo, and between both ofthemand hisbrother Joseph.To gain attentionhe became a scrapper. In 1813 he chided his own two-year-oldson: "Lazybones, when I was your age I was already beating up Joseph."However,his motherset standards:you do not gain attentionand respectby being naughty,but onlyby accomplishment.

This constellation of familyrelationships can be described and interpretedin termsofat least fourmajor psychological theories: Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex, AlfredAdler's siblingrivalry,Kohut's ego psychology,and Silvan Tomkins's scripthypothesis.In theirown way, theyall fitthe data and illuminate some aspect, and ifwe had space we could discuss thepsychobiographicissues thusraised. For the moment, forour purposes, Tomkins'sscripttheoryseems heuristically more convenient and fruitful.

Tomkins asks us to look at the scene-the actor, the situation,the action, and the accompanying multiplyingaffect-and at the repetition of like situations, like responses, like affects,until the response becomes a habit, an underlying disposition, a script determining behavior.4

In Napoleon's lifethe scene-the two-year-oldemergingfromthe back room perceivinga situationto be competitivelyand combatively conquered and won-was repeated again and again. Napoleon was an irrepressibleclimberwithinhis own family;his familywereirrepressible social climbers in Ajaccio, in Corsica, and in France. The Bonapartes werenowherenear thetop in Ajaccio (as Napoleon latersaid, theywere petitsgentilshommes),but from1769 theyschemed and connived and used everyopportunityto get ahead. The childand youthNapoleon was partofthatschemingconversationand effort.

The scene was repeated at the college of Brienne, that the nineyear-oldNapoleon entered in 1778. To a degree he provokedthedeveloping scenario. The new kid on theblock, witha Corsican chip on his shoulder,he provokedmerciless hazing by the disdainfulyoung scions of the French nobility. He responded by hard work in subjects that interestedhim-he was thestarpupil in mathematics,thusrevealinghis

4. This concise capsulation does not do justice to the warmth,subtlety,and sophisticationofSilvanS. Tomkins'stheories.See hisAffectI,magery,Consciousness,3 vols. (New York:SpringerPublishingCompany1962).

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