Originally Posted by
Pro-opera Jungian
Winning the campaign of 1815 was not impossible. As Napoleon himself once stated, "The word impossible is not in my dicitionary." Unfortunetly for Napoleon, he lost the battle of Waterloo before it even began.
Firstly he had his 2nd rate generals in command. Napoleon kept his best generals in other theatres of operation to meet the other allied armies. The campaign in the Low Countries was based on the principle of a quick victory. If you are to have a quick victory, other fronts cannot matter, therefore keep your best generals with you. Napoleon delegated far too much responsibility to Ney and Grouchy, and D'Erlon and Reille were far from ideal. Imagine this as an alternate organization:
I Corps (And left wing commander) Davout
II Corps (And Right Wing Commander) Soult
III Corps-Suchet
IV Corps-Ney
VI Corps-Gerard
Cavalry-Grouchy
Artillery-Drouet
Guard-Lobou or Vandamme, take your pick.
Chief of Staff-Rapp
With such an army, the failure to crush either Wellington or Blucher on the 16th would never have taken place. The mistakes of D'Erlon's assault, Ney's cavalry charge, Reille's various blunders and Grouchy's slowness would most likely would not have occurred. Still, the question remains: Even if Napoleon had an 'Austerlitz' at Waterloo, could he win. Casualties withstanding, his army's strength would increse. Historically, even after Waterloo, Davout was amassing over 60,000 new troops or troops transferred from the coast. Napoleon would still have around 120,000-180,000 men, including the troops from the Army of the Rhine (where the next battle would most likely be fought.)
Let us remember that in sitiuations like Dresden, Marengo, Austerlitz, Friedland and Wagram, the allies sued for peace because of the shock of one army or two being destroyed, even if they had others in the field. If a decisive enough victory was won, followed by a victory at even the lowest scale elsewhere, the allies may have sued for peace, reluctant in starting the whole Napoleonic wars all over again. One might picture a Europe with France at it's original borders led by Napoleon. As mentioned above, Napoleon by no means wanted to re-conquer Europe. This however all banks on a decisive victory at Waterloo, which, alas for the French, never took place.