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"...Napoleon knows that these are the Prussians, but he sends his aides out through the ranks to say they are French soldiers. He has calculated that the British will fall first and he will have time to redeploy. It is a massive miscalculation."

Highly misleading IMHO. At that point at the height of the battle, in the final couple of hours, all Napoleon COULD do was try to break the British/Allied (3/4 non-British!) line before the Prussians came to bear. There was nothing else he could do at that moment (there is much to 2nd-guess about the hours and days leading up to that point).

Had Napoleon abandoned the attack on Wellington at that point and turned forces to meet the Prussians, he (Napoleon) was finished anyway. No way would he have ended up victorious at that point - he had to inflict a decisive defeat on at least one of the armies facing him on that day, and by the time his forces were deeply engaged with Wellington's forces his only hope was to achieve a breakthrough against Wellington, lonnnng shot though it was at that point.

Now leading up to that day there are certainly points where one can point to complacency, miscommunication, and carelessness on the part of N. and several of his commanders. N. had to come to grips with either the Prussians first and defeat them handily, or else somehow hold them off while defeating Wellington. He had about 1/2 the number of troops on the scene IIRC compared to Wellington + Blucher, so facing those two armies together was an extreme long shot at that point in his career. He was very ill at that time, I believe, and did not display anything like his usual boldness and decisiveness.

"The key to Napoleon’s success was that he was a living computer. His mental skills enabled him to bring greater force to bear in the required place at the key moment in time. Everything thing he did - his strategy, his planning, his logistics, his tactics were all geared towards that objective. "

It is reported that primary source material concerning these subjects (Napoleon) from the French perspective are state secrets, archived by France and off limits for research.

yitbos