French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeated multiple European coalitions despite his opponents’ numerical and resource superiority. Napoleon’s “corps system” (corps d’armée), which emphasized flexibility in maneuver and local force superiority, was so revolutionary that it formed the basis for modern command and control systems. But casualties and disruptions to the French army’s leadership after Napoleon’s initial exile to Elba took a toll on his ability to achieve victory in the Hundred Days campaign. Chief among other factors, Napoleon’s ultimate defeat at Waterloo in 1815 can be chalked up to this dearth of capable personnel. Without officers and soldiers he could trust to implement the corps system in the field effectively, the so-called Master of Europe lost a crucial advantage.
Without the right personnel, whatever technological, strategic, or logistical advantages a military may possess on paper become irrelevant. Personnel is everything; without capable personnel, weapon systems go unmanned, and supply systems become bogged down. It’s well known that the U.S. military is in the midst of a recruiting crisis, but it’s our retention crisis that proves equally as dire.
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