How many battles did Napoleon win/lose?
Ethel is partly right. However, Napoleon was certainly defeated, and by a numerical force far inferior to his own, in his invasion of Syria. Acre, a poorly fortified city (12th/13thC walls in a ruinous condition) was defended with the help and under the leadership of Capt. Sir Sidney Smith of the Tigre and another ship under his command. Smith has the honour of being the first commander to defeat Napoleon on land. Napoleon again had numerical superiority at Waterloo where, for hours until Blucher belatedly arrived, the cream of the French forces was up against the scratch team Wellington had to work with. He was outthought and outgeneralled by a man who had experience of real soldiering – not just beating up half-trained and unwilling conscript armies. By the way, ‘disease and insufficient supplies’ is too kind an excuse for Bonaparte’s pathetic generalship in Syria. If supplies were inadequate, who but he was to blame? And disease? That reminds me that it was in the Syrian campaign th
