Hi, I was watching a YouTube video and it said that Marshal Bernadotte was supposed to support Marshal Davout but he did not show up. Why didn't he support him in such a huge battle and why was he not fired? Davout's Corp had lost a significant number of men after facing the main Prussian army alone.
What if before Frederik king of prussia decided to take on napoleon in 1806 he decided to reform his military so he can take on napoleon
And lets say the battle happens and Napoleon got smashed and humiliated,How would this affect the napoleonic wars? And if The coalition does take paris would there be a rise of Prussia's power in europe because of this?
Hi everyone,
A friend of mine, great admirer of Napoleon, told me the other day that the Napoleonic Wars, and the Battle of Jena first of all, shaped the entire European history up until the end of WWII. His claim was that Jena caused the war of 1870, which caused WWI, which caused WWII.
Though I'm aware, and he's aware, that to sum up 150 years in such a sweeping statement is a huge shortcut, I don't dispute the last three links (1870, 1914, 1939), which line up with what I was taught in high school. (Note: we're both French, and were taught history from a French bias).
Yet, I was unsure about the 1806 => 1870 part.
He then pointed me to the (French) Wikipedia article about the war of 1870, which contains a quote from Bismarck, saying, while signing the (1871) Treaty of Versailles : Β« Sans IΓ©na, pas de Versailles Β» (without Jena, no Versailles).
Yet, this quote refers to a newspaper article (in Le Figaro, 2015). The article itself is closed to non-subscribers. I tried to find a reference to this quote in the English and German wikis, to no avail.
Did Bismarck really say that, or thought that ? Is there any first-hand source attesting it ? Is this a broadly-shared view ? None of us are historians, and our knowledge of the era is very limited.
Thanks !
