1. Show Up 2. See What Happens 3. ??? 4. Profit!

December 23, 2014 5:54 AM

An episode of Sports Night refers to Napoleon's Battle Plan as being: "First we show up, then we see what happens." Does this have any grounding in reality, or is it just Sorkinism gone wild?

Season 1, Episode 22 of Sports Night (entitled, appropriately enough, "Napoleon's Battle Plan") contains an exchange between Dan and Casey (referenced later throughout the episode) where Casey indicates he will be employing Napoleon's Battle Plan: "First we show up, then we see what happens." You can see the exchange here.

I am generally familiar with Napoleon and his march and the Russian Army and Elba and the like, but don't know much beyond the 101 stuff. While I doubt this is anything close to a stated plan Napoleon ever made, is there any legitimate historical basis for this summary? Or just a typical "Casey's not so street smart" long form gag on the part of the writers?

Googling finds exactly one blog post not explicitly talking about Sports Night in analyzing the quote, but I think the author must have seen it on Sports Night and started riffing, because the phrasing is identical.

This is super important. Thank you.

posted by SpiffyRob to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

Not based in reality. Napoleon was a good planner, understood both strategy and tactics, grasped military concepts related to both land warfare and naval warfare, and thought things through before he executed against them.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:19 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

In his memoirs, he did say the pithier French version of that, which is why it might not be coming up on a google search. I don't think he was retroactively applying it to his entire history of warfare. What he was getting at was flexibility of tactics, I think, and it (among other factors) is one thing that won him some battles.

I can't find the book right now, but Blundering to Glory: Napoleon's Military Campaigns by Owen Connelly discusses exactly this and is pretty entertaining. (The "blundering" part of the title is overstating things.)
posted by automatic cabinet at 6:24 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Ah, found it. Napoleon said, "On s'engage, et alors on voit," which was translated in the book to "you engage, and then you wait and see."

So not quite the same, but in the same spirit.
posted by automatic cabinet at 6:28 AM on December 23, 2014 [18 favorites]

Along the same lines as Moltke the Elder: "No plan survives contact with the enemy".
posted by spaltavian at 7:26 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Awesome, thanks automatic cabinet! I like it much better in French.
posted by SpiffyRob at 7:41 AM on December 23, 2014

We're talking about the man who revolutionized artillery (his cannon crews were outfitted with ballistic tables that determined the precise angle of elevation to point the gun for a target at a given distance and relative elevation), supply (canned food was invented under his command), and data presentation (a particular graph by one of his staff is still held up as the "best summary of complex data ever attempted", or some such praise).

I think it's more accurate to say that he believed strongly in planning, so that on the day of action he didn't sweat the small stuff.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Charles Minard's map, while glorious, was made well after Napoleon's time, in 1869, unfortunately. It's been hugely influential on graphic design for information presentation though.
posted by bonehead at 8:41 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ah, I conflated the two. My bad.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:51 AM on December 23, 2014

I like it much better in French.

Yes, “show up” is really a mistranslation; it would be much closer to the original as “We start fighting, then we see what happens."

From one of my dictionaries: "Engager le combat, Le commencer. On dit de même Engager une querelle, une discussion.”

It seems very close in spirit to the later quote from Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, which is usually translated as: “No plan survives contact with the enemy."
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 9:41 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

To me it is a mix of the two styles that made Napoleon great. Yes, as others have written, he was a great planner, so I won't repeat that. But he was the also the first person to look at the long static lines of soldiers stiffly standing and firing, and say, "Why don't I turn that line into a loosely forward-moving column and let the small level commanders decide how they want to prosecute my over-arching plan?" It is the combination of the two modes of thinking that let him conquer Europe, and I suspect your television person is referencing the latter.
posted by seasparrow at 12:35 PM on December 23, 2014

Am I allowed to say, mods, that as an out-of-control control freak who is ruining her life by sweating the small stuff, I loved this thread and I want to make "First we show up, then we see what happens" my battle cry for 2015? ;o) Truly. Honestly. It is now on my bulletin board. Written on my arm. In my daybook. On my mirror. Elsewhere. Thank you SpiffyRob ... you were right. This was super important. Bless you, and the translators as well.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 4:30 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Checking in after some more research: I've seen it as written in Blundering to Glory ("On s'engage, et alors on voit") in most historically focused works. Elsewhere, I've seen it as "On s'engage, et puis on voit." Minor difference, but I know just enough about the language to find it an interesting one.

It is the combination of the two modes of thinking that let him conquer Europe, and I suspect your television person is referencing the latter.

I like to think of Casey McCall as our television person.

I'm pumped to know the roots of this thing, but I'm even more tickled to have a reason to overthink Sports Night some more. Casey's simplified understanding of the quote (or any complex matter) is completely on point for his character.

And thanks again, automatic cabinet. I'm breezing through Blundering to Glory now.
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:58 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]