Brenden Simms eludes to when he states that “The Grande armee was not bled to death by a thousand cuts, worn down by British sponsored guerrillas (in Spain) or starved into submission by the Royal Navy: it was totally destroyed at great cost in Russia in 1812” – Brendan Simms, Napoleon a political life- This argument has much validity to it as we know that Napoleon lost an estimated half a million men, thousands of horses and one thousand cannons in a single failed campaign. This loss is arguably one of the main reasons for the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo, Napoleon himself recognised that “In most battles the Guard artillery is the deciding factor…” Previously “… French gunners dominated Europe’s battlefields in the 19th century because of their aggressive tactics, imaginative leaders and their raw courage” and so without their actual cannons any remaining experienced French gunners were rendered almost useless due to a lack of actual cannons in the French army. General Blücher later privately reflected that “against that fellow [Napoleon] you need cannons and lots of them” and so it only seems appropriate that Napoleon felt similarly towards Wellington and Blücher hence why this loss of artillery resulted in his ultimate downfall. Jonathan Riley argues that “It is ironic that, having succeeded in so many campaigns on the basis of just enough, just in time, he failed in Russia after the most extensive preparations undertaken in the history of warfare up to that point.” – How Good Was Napoleon? – By Jonathon Riley Britten-Austin agrees when he writes that “The biggest, most spectacular army Europe had ever raised” was decimated in a matter of months through an unwillingness to abandon all Napoleon had conquered in Russia without concessions from the Tsar. Despite this astounding loss of men, an estimated 20,000 returned from the original 600,000 that left for Russia, it was the loss of horses and cannons that damaged him most. Britten-Austen tells us that “men could be easily replaced, not horses” and that “it was because of his lack of cavalry that Napoleon was eventually defeated by Austria, Prussia, Sweden and Russia, in 1813.” This became evident in the Waterloo campaign of 1815 as after more than twenty years of warfare the number of horses available for military use had been significantly eroded across the continent and this meant that at Waterloo the British had access to the finest contemporary cavalry units which was arguably a deciding factor in the Emperor’s>