First Strike

Preemptive War in Modern History

Matthew J. Flynn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781135904135
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

Preemptive warfare is the practice of attempting to avoid an enemy's seemingly imminent attack by taking military action against them first. It is undertaken in self-defense. Preemptive war is often confused with preventive war, which is an attack launched to defeat a potential opponent and is an act of aggression. Preemptive war is thought to be justified and honorable, while preventive war violates international law. In the real world, the distinction between the two is highly contested.

In First Strike, Matthew J. Flynn examines case studies of preemptive war throughout history, from Napoleonic France to the American Civil War, and from Hitler's Germany to the recent U.S. invasion of Iraq. Flynn takes an analytical look at the international use of military and political preemption throughout the last two hundred years of western history, to show how George W. Bush's recent use of this dubiously "honorable" way of making war is really just the latest of a long line of previously failed attempts.

Balanced and historically grounded, First Strike provides a comprehensive history of one of the most controversial military strategies in the history of international foreign policy.

CHAPTER 1
The Seven Streams: Napoleon Moves on Vienna, 1805

Introduction

In the late afternoon, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France for a year and a day, reviewed the field of Austerlitz. The battle was over and he was pleased. On this day, December 2, 1805, the French army had seized 12,000 prisoners, captured 180 cannon, and taken 50 standards. A further 15,000 Russians and Austrians lay dead on the field of battle. Napoleon had achieved a phenomenal success. His outnumbered forces had successfully defeated the combined strength of Austria and Russia deep in enemy territory and at the cost of not even 9,000 French casualties. The Austrians, having previously lost their capital of Vienna to the French and now having lost the major battle of the campaign, quickly sued for peace. The Russians fled back east whence they had come. In a swift, preemptive campaign, Napoleon had crushed two of the allied armies of the Third Coalition. Still, Napoleon’s main enemy, England, remained unbeaten so no matter this victory, the war continued. To Napoleon, it was clear that just as this war had been forced upon him, so too would another. This reality dampened an otherwise glorious campaign.

Austerlitz established a Napoleonic presence in Europe in dramatic fashion. It would last another ten years, until Bonaparte met final defeat at the famous Battle of Waterloo in Belgium in June 1815. In this ten-year interval, he would march his armies into every capital on the Europeancontinent waging a series of “Napoleonic” wars. Before this point, the emperor’s rise to power had been just as dramatic but on lesser playing fields. Trained as an artillery officer in the French Royal Army, the convulsions of the French Revolution handed the ambitious Bonaparte several opportunities for rapid advancement. First he expelled the English fleet from the port of Toulon. He then protected the revolutionary government, the Directory, when his cannon fired on a Paris mob. More significant commands followed. In 1797, Bonaparte’s outnumbered and ill-supplied army overran the Austrians in Italy. The rising general next served as the expeditionary commander of a French army in Egypt. Returning to France in 1799, Napoleon had won enough acclaim through his military exploits to profit the most from a coup. He again won a victory over the Austrians in Italy in 1800, this time serving at the head of the French government as First Consul. Humbling France’s military foes won converts at home, as did his efforts at healing France’s revolutionary wounds. He rode this combination to absolute power, proclaiming himself emperor on December 2, 1804.

Given his expansion of French territory, it is hard to see Napoleon as anything other than an aggressor. The following pages reshape this outlook by analyzing the Napoleonic campaign of 1805 as an example of preemptive warfare. This view of Napoleon offers a much more sympathetic picture of him than that of an aggressor. He had always had his admirers but these writers had to confront the awful consequences of their hero’s actions. It is estimated that 1.2 million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic wars and countless other Europeans died as well. These horrible losses detracted from his genius tenfold. Surely only a man serving his own interests could pay such a price. To admire the man and his deeds meant condoning this loss of life. Most writers lauded his generalship and his military victories but not the aggression inherent in both. Now, from the gaze of preemption, the moral stain on Napoleon can be lifted and his military accomplishments and feats of generalship can stand unblemished and therefore supreme. Yet the pardon preemption offers Napoleon is not total since determining the morality of his actions remains a chief part of any analysis of his life. Aggression proves a hard stain to remove, as this chapter makes clear.

The Case for Preemption

Before 1805, Napoleon’s preferred target had been England. How did the French army end up fighting on the Moravia plains northeast of Vienna in 1805? In the answer to this question lies the value of preemption. The latest round of English and French rivalry stretched back over a decade.Already France had rebuffed two coalitions raised by England that tried to use military force to invade France, restore the Bourbon dynasty, and end the revolution. The first allied effort met defeat at the hands of a French revolutionary army at the battle of Valmy on September 20, 1792. This victory made it clear to Europe that France had unleashed a powerful movement within its borders. The second coalition floundered in 1800 in Italy when French armies led by Bonaparte pounced on Austrian forces and defeated them in June at Marengo, an achievement that announced to Europe that the Corsican upstart possessed more talent than previously believed. After another French military victory over the Austrians, this time in Germany at the battle of Hohenlinden in December 1800, Austria made peace with France in February 1801. With England fighting alone and France exhausted, both sides agreed to a tentative peace in March 1802.

Napoleon had done well to broker this treaty. Having helped engineer the coup d’état of Brumaire in 1799, he now ruled France as First Consul. His success as a warrior had got him to this point. But France had grown tired of its constant struggles and looked to its latest savior to end hostilities abroad and to heal fissures at home. While Napoleon relished his position of prominence, he understood he had to produce results in other than the martial arena to keep his seat. The general was going to have to exhibit some statesmanship.

This deed he soon achieved to the satisfaction of the French people. The Peace of Amiens won France a reprieve from war and the country enjoyed peace for the first time in ten years. It was badly needed given the devastation brought about by the internal upheaval and wars fought in the name of defending or advancing the revolution. French problems were legion in the countryside, including burned crops and farms, poisoned wells, and dead livestock. The situation was hardly better in the cities. Political convulsions had resulted in a suspension of basic functions, meaning sanitation problems had become acute and amassing enough food to feed the inhabitants there problematic. There was no shortage of security, but it was arbitrary in the extreme and dependent upon whatever political front held the ascendancy. Its measure of justice was equally extreme and executions were frequent, often for the most trivial reasons. The Terror had claimed thousands of victims. Now only uncertainty reigned throughout France. These problems needed to be addressed and the tension within France eased. The newfound peace gave Napoleon the opportunity to do just that.

The peace with England was short-lived, however. French military victories had merely won the nation a truce, nothing more. With no sea change in the disposition of the two principal antagonists, hostilities loomed once again. They came in May 1803, the peace having lasted only thirteenmonths. Malta proved the main sticking point of the treaty. This key island in the Mediterranean Sea had come under English control after Britain crushed French naval power in Egypt in 1798 at the Battle of the Nile. England refused to evacuate the island as it had agreed to do in the Peace of Amiens, fearing renewed French military adventures in the region. England thereby saddled itself with having started a new war with France. Much as had been the case with the revolutionary governments that had preceded him, Napoleon had war forced upon him by a recalcitrant England.

Once the Peace of Amiens collapsed in May 1803, Napoleon engaged in elaborate preparations for an invasion of the island nation. He would settle this war with England once and for all. To do so, he chose the most direct route available, a cross-Channel assault to occupy the British Isles. Napoleon assembled 180,000 soldiers in seven camps along the French coast facing Britain. Perhaps sheer numbers might unnerve England and bring it to its senses so it would make a permanent peace with France. If no peace came, then he would go forward with the invasion. To make the threat of such an attack a reality, the First Consul committed France to achieving naval parity, if not superiority, vis-à-vis England. In the coastal town of Boulogne and nine other ports, his troops and sailors readied barges in great numbers. Training on these craft assumed a regularity to further give evidence of France’s commitment to invasion and to its feasibility.

He stuck by his goal no matter the glaring failures in the execution of his plans and the surfacing of near insurmountable obstacles. His admirals plagued him the most. They suffered from a universal unwillingness to engage English warships in battle. Understanding this limitation, Napoleon devised several schemes to bring superior numbers of French ships to bear on England’s navy that was guarding against a Channel crossing. The most elaborate operational plan was to be put into practice. Multiple French fleets acting in unison would emerge from the safety of their ports, break the English blockage, and race to the Caribbean. After reinforcing the garrisons of French colonies, these fleets would unite and return to the Channel. On paper at least, close to sixty French men-of-war could be assembled at one time. Surely this was enough to prompt his admirals to fight and disperse the English ships protecting the British Isles.

His hoped-for fleet never materialized as his plans went awry for a number of reasons. French admirals insisted Napoleon understood little of war at sea. Ships could not be moved around as one directed a land army. Indeed, the far-ranging maneuvers stretching from Europe to the Americas could hardly be considered sound planning. That Napoleon created a navy of barges as well as ordering the construction of additional warships also spoke to the unworkable nature of his plans. He pursued two endeavors atonce and this duplication of effort with already scarce resources doomed the entire enterprise. Yet, this error spoke to Napoleon’s desperation to at least try an invasion, a stand that separated him from his admirals. To the amazement of all except possibly Napoleon, the assembling of a grand French fleet almost came to pass on several occasions, but these brief opportunities were lost by his dithering admirals, especially Vice Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve.

No matter these disappointments, Napoleon remained steadfast in his purpose to finish the war with England. If Napoleon had had his way, the war would involve only France and England and its duration would be short. Either French forces would perish when crossing the Channel and Napoleon would fall from power, or a French army would land on English soil and conquer the nation. Napoleon believed only 15,000 men would be necessary to complete a march from the coast of Kent to the city of London. He prodded his reluctant admirals by boasting, “Let us be masters of the [Dover] Straits for six hours and we shall be masters of the world.” He later upped the total needed to three days.* If boastful and relying on the dubious expectation of a spontaneous revolt of the English people in sympathy with their French liberators, it was clear he was willing to gamble everything on a war with England. The last thing he wanted was a war on the Continent that would only take him away from his purpose of invading Britain by undoing his elaborate invasion plans, thereby forfeiting the time and expense levied to make this attack possible.

Doggedly for over two years Napoleon kept his cross-Channel invasion hopes alive. In the meantime, he looked for other ways to hurt England. French troops seized territory on the Continent allied to or dependent on England. This step meant that Hanover in Germany, Naples in Italy, and Holland and Belgium to the north of France all came under Napoleon’s control. Soon he formed satellite states in each region and added their military forces to the French order of battle. Then in a sweeping mandate, the First Consul prohibited trade with England in all areas allied to France. Additionally, Napoleon ordered the arrest of English citizens in French territory. He could do nothing other than this and his frustration grew as England raided French merchant ships and seized French colonies. Anticipating his impotence before English sea power, Napoleon had relinquished control of French territory in North America and sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. This retreat of French power he dismissed as no more than a minor setback, convinced as he was that the United States would prove a maritime rival to England. This development lingered in the indefinite future, and at present Napoleon remained focused on an invasion of England. It was an odd war, the two sides steadfast in opposition to one another but unable to land blows that would push the conflict to a point of resolution. The standoff appeared as complete as the intransigence driving the antagonists to make war on one another.

England possessed one more card that promised to break the deadlock. Britain decided that if it could not directly strike effectively at France, then it would spend money bolstering continental allies who could. It was an old formula but maybe it would work this time around. When William Pitt the Younger became prime minister a second time in May 1804, he worked diligently to assemble a Third Coalition consisting of England, Sweden, Austria, and Russia. Prussia maintained its uneasy neutrality. It very well might decide to enter the war against France should England’s partners enjoy an early military success at Napoleon’s expense.

The Third Coalition was already strong and it threatened to grow stronger should Prussia enter the war on the side of England. By 1805, Napoleon could no longer ignore the fact that England’s allies on the Continent posed an immediate threat to France. Napoleon knew they had to be neutralized, but how? Only a swift, devastating attack into central Europe could cripple these allies of England before they united and invaded France. A preemptive strike by the emperor’s armies could catch the Austrian and Russian forces separated from one another and initiate a battle favorable to France. A quick victory promised to ensure Prussian neutrality. Once Napoleon eliminated this primary danger, the other threats along the periphery of France, such as English activity in Naples and Sweden’s menacing of northern Germany, would recede. A preemptive campaign would deprive England of its mercenary armies on the continent and he could again focus his attention on England. For Napoleon, the advantages were too great not to act preemptively and the necessity equally plain.

Another military necessity demanded the French employ a preemptive strike. Even should the preferred invasion of England prove successful, Napoleon’s position was untenable. Once on English soil, what of the powers allied to that island nation? A now unprotected France lay vulnerable to assault. To strike England with the continental members of the Third Coalition at his back would be folly but to head east to meet this threat meant giving up an attack on France’s chief foe and passing on an oppornity that might never come again. To do nothing meant France faced defeat at the hands of invading armies of superior numbers. In a very real sense, Napoleon’s great army of 180,000 men lay impotent on the Channel coast.

The creation of this strategic dilemma is a great tribute to the diplomacy of Pitt who worked very hard to create the new coalition. In this way, in1805, Pitt ensured that war would not come across the Channel and to England but gravitate toward central Germany. But England’s diplomatic success also underscored the limited choices available to France and therefore made preemption a preferred choice almost by default. As scholar David Chandler wrote in his great treatment of the military history of the Napoleonic era, The Campaigns of Napoleon, “By striking for the Danube, the Emperor hoped to forestall his continental enemies, crush them in detail and thus deliver a telling blow against his inveterate insular opponent.”* Even a hostile biographer of Napoleon like Alan Schom recognized this imperative, writing in Napoleon Bonaparte that because of his inferiority in numbers, the emperor “had to act swiftly to divide and crush the Allies before they could unite and attack him en masse.”** France would fight its way out of this seemingly intractable problem and it would do so in preemptive fashion. First Napoleon would crush the Austrians with a rapid French attack, this before the Russians arrived to lend a hand. Then Napoleon could focus on defeating the Russians. While Pitt’s new coalition had earned a reprieve for England, in the process of securing this end he helped to launch a whirlwind of military activity upon the rest of Western Europe directed by a master tactician, Napoleon Bonaparte. The results would be as monumental as they would be unpredictable.

A larger imperative prompted Napoleon to act in preemptive fashion. England’s war against France singled out the revolution as its primary enemy. The convulsions that had gripped France since 1789, indeed, that had made Napoleon’s rise to power possible, made France Britain’s target long before 1805. No matter the divisions within the English home front as to the virtues and sins of the French Revolution, all parties could agree that Napoleon at the helm of the most populous state in Europe, and now one possessing a revolutionary dogma, could not be countenanced. The balance of power in Europe, so long treasured by England as a necessary staple of its foreign policy, faced upheaval should France export its newfound faith in equality and liberty and rally the Continent against Britain. Eventually, all political factions in England came to this conclusion. They recognized that the talented Bonaparte could use such a creed to advance the territorial interests of France to the detriment of England. England never ceased waging this struggle after 1802 until it had defeated and incarcerated Napoleon. It would take over a decade but the fight would be worth it from Great Britain’s perspective.

An English victory at the expense of the revolution was an end Napoleon could ill afford since he posed as the savior of the revolution, as the man best able to procure the fruits of this frightening period of recent French history. Napoleon’s ability to negotiate the Peace of Amiens had been one of his early accomplishments as First Consul. The French people welcomed a steady hand to restore order and sanity to their daily lives. In gratitude they voted to extend his term as First Consul to life.

In broad terms, Bonaparte used his government to offer stability to France. Tranquility on the home front meant guaranteeing private property, something forfeited during the revolution, providing favorable conditions for commerce, and increasing agricultural development. Once the government set these economic goals, the immediate result was that hard currency emerged from hiding and sparked investment funds. Soon new industries developed. Enjoying this air of confidence, the small Paris stock exchange returned to operation. As an added calming mechanism, Bonaparte backed freedom of worship and to this end he made peace with the Catholic Church on July 15, 1801. More importantly, this concordat meant the church no longer served as an ally of Bourbon restoration. This act only partly squelched royalist dissent, however. To meet the lingering and at times violent uprisings in the west of France on behalf of this sentiment, Napoleon sent in the army and ordered extreme measures to be taken. Much bloodshed ensued but the revolts ended. Civil war no longer plagued France and this step brought more stability to the country.

Individual liberty also became more viable once Napoleon turned his attention to legislating on behalf of his new country. He regularized civil legal codes, a time-consuming process only completed and implemented in January 1804. And it was largely his doing, since he presided over every change in the articles of the code. Education received much special attention with notable achievements, such as the reopening of the National University and the offering of thousands of national scholarships to deserving students. The benefits of education reached further than ever before since Napoleon opened these intuitions at all levels of instruction to anyone showing merit. Talent would decide a person’s opportunities, not birth. Even women enjoyed greatly expanded opportunities in the educational system. The Legion of Honor fully exemplified the defense of individual liberty since this institution again guaranteed that persons of merit and not merely of noble blood would receive the honors of state. If this antagonized émigrés by elevating inferiors to positions of equality, Napoleon assuaged this group as well by welcoming them back to France and promising to restore to them their property confiscated during the revolution, if at all possible.

Napoleon had gone a long way to securing the gains of the revolution and his acts in this regard were numerous, achieved their purpose, and left France stronger than before. The benefits were self-evident even if a more prosperous France had to overlook a glaring contradiction in relation tothe revolution. Napoleon was at once its savior and its destroyer. At the same time that he declared that the revolution was over, he had clearly preserved many of its tumultuous changes. Napoleon was an enigma and his achievements hard to categorize. What was clear was that should England prevail in this great struggle, all that France had endured over the past twelve years would be trauma suffered in vain. Somehow the nation must triumph and preemption offered Napoleon a viable and necessary recourse to achieve this end of self-preservation on behalf of France.

Military necessity and the larger imperative of preserving the revolution compelled Napoleon to attack before England’s allies were ready to advance into French territory. A third reason guided this preemptive strike and that was to protect the person of the emperor. For 1805 was a very different time than 1792 and 1800, the dates of the first two anti-French coalitions. Bonaparte now ran France as Emperor Napoleon, having successfully held a national plebiscite deciding this issue on November 6, 1804. The coronation took place on December 2. The title of emperor, however, signaled to all of France that the revolution remained in play, that Napoleon represented only much-needed law and order, not an end to the movement that had deposed the hated Bourbon dynasty. He was not a king but an emperor in the tradition of the leaders of th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• 1 The Seven Streams: Napoleon Moves on Vienna, 1805
• 2 Preserving a Way of Life: The War Between the States, 1861
• 3 Imperial Hegemony: The Russo–Japanese War, 1904–1905
• 4 Trapped into War: Imperial Germany and the Great War in Europe, 1914
• 5 A Question of Survival: National Socialism takes Germany to War, 1939
• 6 Choosing Enemies: Japan Accepts the US Challenge for War, 1941
• 7 The Soviet Monroe Doctrine: The Russo–Finnish Winter War of 1939
• 8 Fighting on Ground of Its Own Choosing: The PRC Opts for War in Korea, 1950
• 9 Being Everywhere at Once: Israel Defeats the Arab League, 1967
• 10 A Dangerous Simplicity: The American Preemptive War in Iraq, 2003
• Conclusion—Preemptive Doctrine: The Weight of History, Limited Returns
• Select Bibliography