Explanation: Louis-Alexandre Berthier was Napoleon Bonaparte’s chief of staff, and one of the core points of transmission for Napoleon’s orders to his military commanders. As Napoleon’s handwriting was infamously hard to read, and his orders often clipped and short, Berthier’s experience in both reading Napoleon’s script and interpreting his meaning was indispensable. The soldiery even jokingly referred to Berthier as “Napoleon’s wife” because of how close the two were.
Berthier died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon’s subordinates at the famous battle struggled with reading and interpreting Napoleon’s orders without getting a ‘cleaned up’ copy from Berthier.
Behind every great man, there is a great malewife 🙏
Work-wife
Do you think Berthier’s death is why Napoleon lost the battle, or would’ve Napoleon lost anyway?
Waterloo was a very near-run thing, with Blucher’s arrival in the evening (with one of Napoleon’s commanders failing to harass and delay Blucher as intended due to uncertainty over his orders) reversing what looked to be a hard-won victory by Napoleon. Counterfactuals are always difficult, so I’ll leave it at “It’s very possible that Berthier’s interpretation could’ve made the difference”
Napoleon himself thought so:
If Berthier had been there, I would not have met this misfortune
Btw Berthiers death by defenestration in Bamberg is a great mystery.
