Napoleon

In my opinion Napoleans ideas where very good and very similar to what we have today however his opinion that he needed to impress them on everyone else was egotistic and costly and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths it could be likened to Hitler some good policies i.e. reduction of unemployment and beniftis systems but some very bad ones ie. Holocaust, but will always be renembered for trying to force thier ideas on others

I could have done better...

yes exactly, even though they can claim it as "righteous cause". Brazil was released without fight, so Britain at least didn't backstabbed their oldest ally.

well, the Cape Colony used to be Dutch before Waterloo...  and the British support for Latin American idnependence...who again helped Spain against Napoleon? 

Originally posted by Justinian I'll have to check my sources, but the one I was specifically thinking of was the war of the spanish succession.  Where the british concluded a secret peace with the french leaving the austrians out in the cold after agreeing that there would be no separate peaces or ones concluded without the consult of the other allies.  Prince Eugene of Savoy by Nicholas Henderson is my main biography source for that, the titles of the more general histories on that subject have evaded my memory.  I also mean't to include how they would drag other powers into a war using monetary stipends then negate on their promises.  I will admit that I am making some sweeping generalizations here and I very well could be wrong.  But I believe I have some basis for my statement and will hold to it until proven otherwise.

Originally posted by Justinian Very well said.  The british were fighting for continued dominance of the seas and balance on the continent to further their own interests.  Throughout the early modern period the british would abandon their allies without a second thought when their interests were secure.  Whether that is better or worse than how the continental powers waged war I do not honestly know.  Just another way to show how the british were always at the head of the class.  They were waging war like the modern world, whereas the continental powers were still fighting like their ancestors.  History is written by the victors-- isn't that the truth.

I was just cruising  the forum and came upon your post.  Remind me, just which ally[ies] did we abandon without a second thought when our interests were secure?

Just gonna prod this a little more:

I think there are specific problems with the rather traditional British concern with "Bony, the Corsican Ogre".

It's not really very consistent, if it is claimed to be due to Napoleons position as a dictator and the terrible plight of people under his rule.

Of course he was a dictator. He was in a sense the first liberal progressive dictator of the 19th c., of which there were subsequently many. And obviously Napoleonic France don't look to good compared to its contemporary British society.

The thing is just that at the time it wasn't Napoleon's status of dictator and any real or percieved lack of civil rights for the French public, or anyone else, which concerned the British. It was the fact that 1) he was and usurper of the legitimate royal power of the Bourbons, the UK after all being a monarchy, 2) leading a France on the up and up, raising the traditional British concern about any single continental power dominating the rest, which seems a reasonable bit of Realpolitik.

The problem is that the reason everyone else fought him was that 1) like the British saw it, he was an usurper of legitimate royal power, but also 2) that he was leading a reforming society which looked, with reason, like an absolute death threat to the, by the Grace of Good, dynastic powers of the Bourbons, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs of Europe.

That's the thing. If the British at the time had actually cared a fig about the political and civil rights of the French, and continentals in general, they would have noticed that they were allying themselves with a set of nasty autocratic absolute monarchies looking rather worse than Napoleonic France. Had political and civil rights been the real concern, Britian would likely have done better by allying itself with Napoleon to fight these Bourbons, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs on the behalf of ordinary Europeans. Or at least stay out of it.

Which means that retrospectively gunning for Napoleon as this terrible despot looks either slightly ahistorical or slightly hypocritical.

One can observe what happened with Napoleon gone: Metternich et al. attempts to restore things to a form of status quo ante, with the Bourbons back on the throne of France. Any future threat of revolution is supposed to be dealt with by a European concert of great powers, with Britian involved as a member.
And then in the early 1820's already, the new first wave of revolutions after the French hits southern Europe, Naples and Spain and suchlike. Only they are aborted, because the monarchic autocracies Austria, Prussia, France and Russia all jump in and dispatch forces. These put down the attempt with such bloodshed that the British withdraws from the European concert in disgust. That's kind of what it gets for getting into bed with these powers. When the Spanish resisted Napoleon the Spaniards were fine fellows. When the made revolution, they were dangerous and had to be put down.

The issue isn't really who spread democracy, political and and civil rights over Europe during the Napoleonic wars. Obvioulsy no one did. Napoleon didn't, he was a French dictator and his liberal reforms elsewhere were geared towards other aspects of society. But neither did Britain, and the royal autocracies Britain allied itself with certainly didn't.

So the British role in the Napoleonic wars wasn't anything like a simple brave resistance to Bony the Tyrant. It also extended the warranty on continental royal autocracy. Which is why the continent still went through half a century of recurrent spasms of revolution after Napoleon.

Some excellent points have been made, especially by findlay and winterhaze.  I went with Legendary emperor.  Napoleon brought a lot of great things to france and europe as a whole.  As has been said he was a benevolent dictator. (an excellent way to categorize his rule)  From the advancement based on merit in the military, the legion of honor, bringing back of the catholic church under the state's control, code napoleon, also as others have said the people lived much better under his term in office.  If he was a bad ruler and an evil tyrant I doubt the people would love him to the degree that they did.  (vive l'empereur) I agree that he started to become influenced by his seeming infallability and that it went to his head later in his dictatorship. (after the defeat of austria and prussia or thereabouts)  In regards to naming himself emperor, to my knowledge the main reason for that was the assassination attempt on his life by royalists supported by britain that made him concerned about what would happen  if he was killed.  Also naming himself emperor made him "fit in" a bit better with the other powers of europe.  Someone mentioned the royal marriages as a way to cement alliances; exactly.  Napoleon put his family on thrones because of the corsican obsession with family and because many times there was no-one else to fill the role.  What perplexes me is why people see him as this tyrant that for the good of humanity had to be beaten.  He was so far above the other rulers and countries of the time, this idea is a complete farce.  Many examples and reasons have been brought forth to defend this. 

Thankyou cattus,

I'll look into getting a copy.

Napoleon was definitely not worse than Hitler. It pleases my heart that you actually judge my posts Emperor Barbarossa. Please, will you give me the honour of judging this post out of 10.

We often hear of Napoleon the Military genius or Emperor. But who exactly was Napoleon the Man? What were his most important early influences and experiences that formed Napoleon the Man? I was looking through my book collection today and found a now out of print interesting book about Napoleons Mother. It is called: A Pride of Lions - a portrait of Napoleons Mother, by Monica Stirling. I think that to really understand Napoleon we first must understand his Family. I will share a small passage from the book with you.....

On June 3rd, 1764, a beautiful Corsican girl of nearly fourteen was married in Ajaccio Catherdral to Carlo Maria Buonaparte, an eighteen year old law student whose family belonged to the islands nobility. Born Letizia Ramolino, this girl was to enter history as Napoleons mother, and while she owes her fame to her son, he owed her the powerful temperament that made his achievements possible.

Although Corsica was just then about to revolt once more against the domination of the Genoese Republic, political tension did not spoil the wedding celebrations. Political conflict was commonplace in this often invaded island, but the spectacle of a bride such as Letizia was rare. Ever since she was a small child, her black eyes, classical features, perfect teeth and chestnut coloured hair had caused people to point her out to strangers as "Ajaccio's little marvel," and cathedral gossips said that her presence at mass was "more effective than an anchorite's virtue" in obtaining conversions. On her wedding day the dramatic effect of Letizia's beauty was heightened by an escourt of more than fifty handsome and energetic male cousins. In a country where the Vendetta remained a popular form of justice, male relatives were as valuble a part of a girl's dowry as land, houses or money. (Later when the English occupied Corsica, seventeen of these "terrible cousins" successfully ambushed fifty four of the invaders.)

Of Italian origin, the Ramolinos were related to the Coll'Alto family that dominated Lombardy in the fourteenth century and settled in Corsica, the third largest island in the Mediterranean, about a hundered years later. In 1745, Letizia's father, Gian Girolamo Ramolino, captain of the garrison at Ajaccio, had married Angela Maria di Pietra Santa, a young girl who came of an old Corsican family and grew up at Bocognano, a mountain village rich in bandits, vendettas and giant chestnut trees. Over half a century later, Napoleon said of Angela Maria di Pietra Santa that when an "argument" arose, his maternal grandmother could summon between two and three hundered militant mountaineers to support her side of it.....


I hope you enjoyed that. Does anyone out there know of any other books specifically relating to Napoleons family? Or do you have an opinion about the influence Napoleons family played in his Empire? Please share it.   




.....They say he's dead! Dead! They obviously don't know him. That's just to trick the people and keep them quiet.....Listen. The truth is his friends have left him alone in the desert, to fulfil a prophecy, because I forgot to tell you that the name Napoleon means 'Lion of the Desert'.....
BALZAC: Le medecin de Campagne.