I Do Not Think That Battle Means What You Think It Means.

"If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." -Senator Jim "Wholly Owned By Big Pharma" DeMint, R-Pfizer


Before discussing the politics of this in a moment, the GOP seems to be using Waterloo to pretend that they actually read something other than the Cliff's Notes version of the Bible (you know, the one that talks about punishing gays, women, poor people and minorities, but is glaringly silent on that whole compassion, love your brother, caring for the poor, the less fortunate thing). Truth is Senator DeMint didn't even read the Cliff's Notes version of the Napoleonic Wars.

Waterloo was not Napoleon's first defeat. It was his last.

The high water mark of Napoleon's Empire. had actually occurred 8 years earlier at Friedland, in present day Poland in the winter of 1806-07. After defeating the Prussian Army, Napoleon had his showdown with the Tsar, in a pair of battles. The first was a draw. The second, at Friedland, was a decisive French victory. As a result of Friedland, Napoleon was, for the moment the master of Europe. Russia negotiated a peace, and agreed to become part of France's Continental System. The Prussian and Austrian Empires were practically vassals of the French Empire. The Holy Roman Empire had been destroyed. Spain was an ally. Only England, with its powerful navy, but no real army to speak of, still stood against Napoleon.

However, from that point forward, it all started to go downhill. In Spain, in early 1808, a popular revolt, quickly began to degenerate into a bloody civil war. Napoleon, initially invited to aid Spain in the fight, quickly moved to turn its role as an ally in a Spanish Civil War into a war of conquest for Spain and Portugal. It failed. Napoleon won major engagements, but saw his army slowly ground down in a bloody six year guerrilla war. It was in Portugal and Spain that Wellington first rose to prominence. And it was in Spain that ultimately, Napoleon suffered his first major defeats.

In 1809, Austria revolted. Napoleon crushed the Austrian Army, and imposed an even harsher peace than the one imposed on the Austrians four years earlier (and cemented his relationship with Austria by marrying the Austrian Princess Maria Teresa). Even Austria's failed revolt showed that Napoleon's Empire was a house of cards, merely waiting for the first breeze to send the foundations tumbling..

Then in 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. The Russian Army, outnumbered, slowly gave ground for months. They fought Napoleon to a bloody stalemate at Borodino, retreated again, eventually yielding Moscow to Napoleon.

But the Russians never gave up, and never ceased to harass Napoleon's supply lines, which now ran from Paris and Strasbourg to Moscow. The Russian Winter, which has consumed and destroyed more invading armies over the years than the Russian Army, set in. With no hope of resupply, the Russian Army still mostly intact, and his own army suffering from low morale and low supplies, Napoleon retreated from Moscow. The retreat was cruel. Harassed and attacked by Russian columns, the French Army perished in the snow. Where there had been an army of close to a million men a bare 6 months before, only 50,000 French troops escaped Russia alive.

In 1813, with Russia pouring into Poland and Austria, Napoleon quickly scraped together another army, by calling up the draft classes of 1814 & 1815, and quickly moved it into Germany. After a short, violent Spring Campaign ended in stalemate, first Prussia, then Austria revolted. By Autumn of 1813, Napoleon's new army was surrounded, and virtually destroyed at what became known as the Battle of Nations, in Leipzig, Germany.

Napoleon again retreated to France, again attempting to scrape together what was increasingly becoming an army of children and old men, but the pressure was too much. Facing a combined British-Spanish invasion in the south, and a Russian-Austria-Prussian steamroller in the north and east, Napoleon's army was no match for the armies arrayed against it. In the Spring of 1814, after several unsuccessful battles in France, Napoleon abdicated his throne at Fontainebleu, West of Paris.

For a year, Napoleon was in exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. During that time, his wife and son (who abdicated his throne shortly after his father) passed into Austrian hands. He would never see either of them again. The Bourbon Monarchy was restored into the throne, under the ineffectual leadership of Louis XVIII, of whom Talleyrand once said that they remembered everything about the Revolution, and learned nothing.

Slowly, word came to Napoleon that the people, and the French Army would not be unhappy if he were to return to the throne. Finally, in the Spring of 1815, Napoleon slipped out of Elba on a friendly ship with a handful of the guards that had been given to him in Elba.

Upon arriving in France, after a few tense confrontations, the Army flocked to Napoleon, and the people followed. Louis XVIII and his court quietly slipped out of France into temporary exile, and Napoleon's second reign, which became known as the "Hundred Days" began.

Knowing that the other European powers would not stand idly by with him on the throne, Napoleon's challenges were many. He had to pacify a France that was heartily sick of war, quickly raise an army to face an inevitable invasion, and ideally do it all quickly enough that he could inflict major defeats on his nearest neighbors (Prussia, Austria, and the English) before they could unite with the Russians on the battlefield, and turn the contest in a war of numbers that Napoleon would lose.

Napoleon moved fast, but his enemies, particularly Prussia and England, would move just as fast. Scraping together all the troops he could spare, Napoleon threw caution to the wind, driving his army into the Belgian countryside, intent on defeating the Prussian and Anglo-Dutch Armies there before they could unite.

He was very nearly successful. His first drive, under Marshal Ney, blunted Blucher's advance at Quatre Bras (albeit at heavy loss), giving Napoleon the chance to destroy the Anglo-Dutch Army, under the Duke of Wellington, ideally before the Prussians could link up.

The Battle of Waterloo got a late start due to an untimely early morning rain, which threatened to turn the battlefield into a quagmire. The rain halted, and Napoleon drove on Wellington's Army. It was a nip and tuck battle. The British prepared positions would hold, but even Wellington described the battle as evenly fought. Then, late in the afternoon, like a sea of field gray clad ants, the Prussian Army began to gather on the surrounding hills to the southwest of Napoleon's Army.

Realizing he was in real danger of being outflanked and crushed between two armies (Wellington's, and the Prussian Army under Blucher) that were each as strong as his own, Napoleon gambled, sending in his last reserves, the Imperial Guard. The Guard's attack on Wellington's Army failed, and the unit broke under the pressure. Within a matter of half an hour, Napoleon's Army had disintegrated.

Napoleon retreated from the battlefield, and several days later would again go into exile, from which he would never return.


History lesson aside, the problem with Waterloo as an analogy is that it means nothing. Waterloo was not Napoleon's doom (that had been cemented several years before), and it certainly wasn't his first setback.

Health care won't be Obama's doom. The dirty little secret being ignored by the media, and blatantly ignored by the useless tits on a bull Blue Dog Democrats, is this. Obama has the votes to pass a health care bill. He has them right now.

The only real issue at debate here is whether Big Pharma or Obama will write the bill. The Republicans are effectively irrelevant in this debate. The success or failure of this will depend on whether Obama can persuade the corporate shill wing of the party (cough. cough. Ben Nelson. cough. cough. Max Baucus) to support a bill that's actually effective, or whether this turns into another giveaway to Merck, Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente, et al.

Ultimately, Obama's first term will be decided the same way all presidencies are. By the state of the economy in 2012. If it's improved over 2008, he will win reelection easily. If it isn't, he risks losing reelection (although given the clowns the GOP seems likely to put up as candidates doesn't make this a lock).

And frankly, Jim Demint, much like the Austrian Army, is irrelevant to the key battle. And that you can take to the bank.