Caesar's Playbook as Operating Manual

“Napoleon learned many essential leadership lessons from Julius Caesar, especially his practice of admonishing troops he considered to have fallen below expectations, as at Rivoli in November 1796. In his book Caesar’s Wars, which he wrote in exile on St Helena, he recounts the story of a mutiny in Rome: Caesar had laconically agreed to his soldiers’ demands to be demobilized, but then he addressed them with ill-concealed contempt as ‘citizens’ rather than ‘soldiers’ or ‘comrades’. The impact was swift and telling. ‘Finally,’ he concludes, ‘the result of this moving scene was to win the continuation of their services.’90 Far more often, of course, he lavished praise: ‘Your three battalions could be as six in my eyes,’ he called to the 44th Line in the Eylau campaign. ‘And we shall prove it!’ they shouted back.91”

“Soon after his arrival at the Tuileries, Napoleon collected twenty-two statues of his heroes for the grand gallery, starting, inevitably, with Alexander and Julius Caesar but also featuring Hannibal, Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Frederick the Great, George Washington, Mirabeau and the revolutionary general the Marquis de Dampierre. The Duke of Marlborough, renowned for his victory at the battle of Bleinheim, was included, as was General Dugommier, whose presence alongside such genuine military giants as Gustavus Adolphus and Marshal Saxe must have been based on his perspicacity in spotting Napoleon’s worth at Toulon. Joubert was there too, since he was now safely dead.”