Sean discusses Napoleon’s marshals, a talented and fascinating group of men.
In all of history Napoleon, Alexander Great and Genghis Khan seems to have been the greatest military geniuses. They also had the best subordinates. Thus they had the best led armies.
The subordinates of Ceasar and Hannibal seem not to have been specially talented. Frederick the Great and Lee had pretty good subordinates but they were still lower league compared to the subordinates of the three great ones.
Hitler did not have many super talented subordinates. No wonder he became so often outraged.
Napoleon believed that Soult, Massena and Marmont were his greatest Marshals. But were they?
Sean believes that Louis Nicolas Davout was the best. He was the equal of Wellington.
Jean Lannes was practically on the same level but died young in 1809 which hit Napoleon hard because of all the marshals Lannes was his close friend. They always got along famously.
Sean also believes that probably the dream team for Waterloo would have been Soult and Davout in command of the left and right wings, Ney in charge of the Guard and de Grouchy in command of the cavalry.
Timestamps by marshals :
0:54 : Louis-Alexandre Berthier
8:40 : Joachim Murat
17:17 : Bon-Adrien-Jannot de Moncey
22:44 : Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
26:29 : André Masséna
33:04 : Charles Pierre François Augereau
37:09 : Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
43:29 : Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune
47:38 : Jean-de-Dieu Soult
53:34 : Jean Lannes
55:50 : Édouard Mortier
1:00:03 : Michel Ney
1:13:17 : Louis Nicolas Davout
1:28:25 : Jean-Baptiste Bessières
1:33:14 : François Christophe Kellermann
1:38:55 : François Joseph Lefebvre
1:45:55 : Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon
1:49:26 : Jean Mathieu Philibert Sérurier
1:53:25 : Claude-Victor Perrin
1:59:40 : Étienne Macdonald
2:08:02 : Nicolas Charles Oudinot
2:13:23 : Auguste Marmont
2:19:40 : Louis-Gabriel Suchet
2:24:24 : Laurent de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr
2:31:08 : Joseph-Antoine Poniatowski
2:36:32 : Emmanuel de Grouchy