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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Yes, he lost in the end, but it took *several* coalitions of all the other great powers in combination to make that happen. He was that era’s master of the operational art. His army had a smaller baggage train than most (and was very disciplined), and he used that to move quickly (by forced marches if need be), to the right place, at the right time, thereby tying larger and less skillfully commanded armies in knots. Every general aims to do this, but it really is as much a talent as a skill.
As he put it himself:
>There are in Europe many good generals, but they see too many things at once. I see one thing, namely the enemy’s main body. I try to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves.
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