Marshal Suchet in Aragon
1998; The MIT Press; Volume: 78; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-4148
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
ResumoThe nature of the campaign was a divergence from what we had come to expect. There was no experience upon which to plan a campaign.... The armed and disciplined enemy army sustained with steady constancy a national struggle against French armies on fields of battle and especially in besieged towns. But the greater part of the population, sometimes without any distinction of age or sex, embarked in that active and obstinate species of contest which brought enemies upon us in all directions and exhausted us far more than regular engagements.l - Louis-Gabriel Suchet, Marshal of France A conventional force is committed far from home in a hostile country. It quickly finds itself having to accomplish nontraditional missions ranging from counterterrorism activities to public administration. Meanwhile, this force must simultaneously faces fighting an unconventional counterinsurgency campaign and a conventional military campaign. The operation's success depends on the correct linkage between the strategic and operational levels of war and the commander's imagination, agility and versatility. This scenario is becoming all too familiar to modem US Army leaders who must face such diverse and complex situations. However, this scenario is not a modem phenomenon; it would be equally familiar to early 19th-century French commanders leading forces into Spain in what has become known as a guerrilla or little war-the first recorded unconventional war fought by conventional Western forces. However, unlike French Marshal Louis- Gabriel Suchet, who conducted just such a war during Napoleon Bonaparte's Spanish Campaign between 1807 and 1813, modern commanders have considerable historical precedent on which to base their thinking and planning for nontraditional or unconventional campaigns, collectively known in modern parlance as operations other than war (OOTW). Napoleon's Spanish Campaign, although ultimately a failure, illustrates the juxtaposition of conventional and unconventional operations. During this difficult and unprecedented situation, most of his subordinates' overall performances at the operational level were poor. Suchet, however, stands out because of his success, albeit temporary, and his enlightened assessment of and solutions to the problems he faced in Aragon and the Ebro Valley. For his able leadership, Suchet was the only one of Napoleon's 26 marshals to receive a baton for his actions in Spain.2 Suchet joined the French Revolutionary Army in 1792 and served with distinction in the 1793 siege of Toulon, France, coming to Napoleon's attention in his first campaign. In 1799, as a result of Suchet's tactical skill during the Italian Campaign and the battles of Rivoli and Novi, he rose to the rank of general de division. In the great German campaigns of Ulm, Austerlitz and Jena from 1804 to 1806, Suchet served brilliantly as a division commander in the corps commanded by Marshals Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult and Jean Lannes. In 1807, during his division's occupation of Warsaw and its environs, Suchet received his first taste of unconventional warfare. According to David G. Chandler in The Eylau Campaign, as Polish patriots harried the French in the cities and difficult terrain, Suchet demonstrated not only exceptional tactical acumen, but a unique ability to perform well while operating independently.3 Suchet in Spain In December 1808, Suchet joined Marshal Edouard Mortier's corps during the siege of Saragossa, Spain. Suchet's division was responsible for securing lines of communication to Madrid, which gave them an unpleasant taste of the brutal nature of partisan war in which there was a pattern of pillage, ambush and reprisal between French forces and the Spanish people. Suchet saw the futility of such actions and desired to rectify the situation if given the opportunity. In April 1809, Suchet assumed command of the III Corps' mediocre divisions-later designated the Army of Aragon. …
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