Why is Napoleon regarded as one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, considering he lost the war he started?
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You are being really disingenuous to say he lost the war he started. It’s sort of like saying “why do they say Tom Brady is the best quarterback ever when he is playing bad this year?”
Historians consider it as 7 Coalition wars that Napoleon and France were the sole fighter against the European coalition, and he won 5 of the 7. He fought against all of Europe basically in 7 wars, not one as you put it, and France single-handedly won 5 of those wars. And those wins were from 1792 through 1809. That’s 17 straight years of Napoleon going around Europe doing whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
His first major loss wasn’t even a tactical loss, as much as it was more of just being arrogant (after waltzing across Europe for 20 straight years) and thinking he could take out Russia. So he decided to march on Moscow. And he was actually successful, but only because Russia let them, but basically razed the town before they left. Then after the French took it, the Russians surrounded his armies in Moscow, in the winter. When your entire army is built on quickly mobilizing and living off the land instead of bringing food, being surrounded in Moscow with all the food stores gone and no local food to eat, the Russians basically starved the French into retreat. While the Russians were doing this, the Prussians mounted an attack on France itself. Napoleon was calling for new conscripts to help him in holding off the Prussians until he could return, but the French were upset at him for losing in Russia and basically ignored him, and surrender to the Prussians.
How he won as u/doc_daneeka pointed out was due to his tactics. His battalions were small and self sufficient. They would live off the land as they moved rather than lugging around huge caravans of food like most armies did. To add to what they said, he also had great tactics when it came to cavalry and especially in artillery. His artillery tactics alone won him many battles, and it has been argued that his one major defeat (at Waterloo) was due to the fact that it rained all night the night before the battle, making the ground too muddy to effectively move his artillery and that it was very foggy out that morning, both of which delayed the battle, and gave time for Blücher to get there with his reinforcements. If not for the rain and fog, Napoleon very well could have won that battle, and therefore that war as well.
Another strategy Napoleon used extremely effectively was feinting attacks to keep the enemy army separated. Battles will often take place across several fronts. Napoleon was very good at splitting his smaller army into groups, faking like they were going to attack bigger armies to keep them occupied and unable to reinforce where his main army would attack and obliterate one front. Then even more, when he feinted on another front and then had his smaller army retreat, they would retreat in a way so that if the bigger army followed, he would pull them to an area where they would be at a strategic disadvantage and could be again overwhelmed by his full army that just finished beating another front.
His tactics changed warfare as it was fought at the time. It took all of Europe united together to beat him, and that was because he had fought and won half of Europe at that point. And even then, it was still unlucky on his part for why he lost his final battle.
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