Excerpt from The History of Napoleon Bonaparte Wellington declared Napoleon's presence in the field to be equal to forty thousand men in the balance, - because, being Sovereign of the country as well as its military chief, he was, unlike a delegated com mander, irresponsible and omnipotent. All the resources of the State, civil, political, and financial, were in his hand and as all the offices and rewards of the State were reserved primarily for the army, any officer, nay, even any private soldier, might aspire to the sovereignty of a kingdom as the reward for his services. An army so constituted and directed by its Emperor in person had obviously greater incentives to exertion than any which could be opposed to it. Moreover, Napoleon's presence as Sovereign and General controlled the jealousies of the marshals and secured that unity of action which is absolutely essential to success, and which by the very nature of their constitution his enemies lacked. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.