Napoleon’s Elusive Quest for a Modus Vivendi: A Clausewitzian Re-Evaluation of Napoleonic Statecraft

The prevailing historiographical narrative portrays Napoleon Bonaparte’s statecraft as a commitment to unlimited policy objectives and existential warfare. Historians such as Paul Schroeder and David Bell argue that Napoleon’s character made him incapable of seeking a stable peace; however, such interpretations frequently conflate his military effectiveness with his political aims. By re-evaluating Napoleon’s war termination against five coalitions through the theoretical frameworks of Carl von Clausewitz and Julian Corbett, this study clarifies the distinction between "unlimited" (regime change) and "limited" (objectives short of regime change) war and illustrates Napoleon’s use of the latter. Applying these frameworks, the study demonstrates how Napoleon utilized battlefield victories as a mechanism of leverage to incentivize negotiated settlements, a nuance often missed by a teleological focus on his eventual downfall. Ironically, the accumulation of power from Napoleon’s victorious limited wars caused a reactionary escalation from the Allies to pursue regime change and destroy the very modus vivendi he was trying to establish.