[The Antiist]

Currently I'm getting done reading a book about Napoleon. I simply wanted to know about Napoleon, the wars he fought and the strategic mistakes he made. Instead of finding merely an informative book, I found a biased one glorifying Napoleon's life (it was written by the president of the Napoleonic Society). From the moment I decided to buy the book I knew it was biased, but I entrusted my own judgement to dismantle the subjectivity from the book and absorb the objectivity.

Although this book contains alot of information and got this information from all sorts of historical (trustworthy) documents, I was overwelmed by the overdone attempt to try and diminish Napoleon's image of being an imperialistic lunatic.
But halfway the book I noticed how the information sources were as reliable as possible and I began to doubt whether Napoleon truly was a tyrant.

What the author is saying throughout the book in a nutshell:
- Napoleon wasn't a tyrant: England constantly was aiming for the fall of 'The Emperor'. England was funding all kinds of countries like Russia and Austria to keep attacking France and establish another government. England opposed Napoleon's dictatorship and the way he had control over other countries as well which consequently made them provoke wars until Napoleon fell.
- Napoleon was continuously making peace offers to countries and whenever he won a battle he would make other countries sign a peace treaty. However, once they had signed England lured these countries again and again to strike France once more to try and overthrow Napoleon's government.
- Once Napoleon fled to Elba he assembled his army once more and went to France again through the Alpes and managed to travel to France without getting arrested. Halfway through France he stood (with 6.000 soldiers or somewhat) opposed to another few thousand men who were there to arrest him. He walked towards the men that had served him in several battles in which he led them to victory and challenged them to take him out. Once he did this, they choose to ignore their captain's orders to arrest Napoleon and screamed 'Vive L'Emperor!'. How could a heartless tyrant capture the hearts of others this way? Even after his banishment he single-handedly grabbed power in France back without a hassle.

Are these lies? Is it that these statements are meaningless due to other actions which the author have consciously chosen to ignore or is it true that he wasn't a tyrant at all? I'm asking this because this is practically the first thing I've read about Napoleon thusfar and you people could probably help me out with this. If you know a book which refute these statements written in the book I'm reading I'm happy to purchase that also.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/186227 ... 44?ie=UTF8

[Jasonh]

I don't know if heartless tyrant is the correct phrase, but he did make himself an emperor. He did wield absolute authority. That he could command the hearts of thousands of his soldiers means very little to those who believe a representative democratic government that respects individual rights is the best form of government.

Also, I think the differing views of him are not exactly contradictory. Napolean did do some amazing things, yet at the end of the day the template he created has been rejected by Western civilization...I hope for all times.

[The Antiist]

Like being described in the book, he didn't 'seize' power, but former leaders have chosen him to be a candidate for leading the country whereafter he also got elected by the people with an overwelming majority. Little more than a 1.000 votes were against Napoleon and more than three million for (not everybody in France had the right to vote back then, but then I don't think there were any countries that did have).

He did turn France into a dictatorship as well as The Netherlands where France had it's influence since the revolution (which was a democrative republic at first), but it was also surrounded by monarchies. I'm not sure about this, but I assume these were fairly authoritarian as well.

[Ombrageux]

Napoleon was a despot, that is clear, but remember that no country at this time had a democratic government. At best, in the case of the United States and Britain, you had parliamentary governments representing a very small section of the population (very wealthy white males). The British government, and specifically the upper classes, were of course terrified of the prospect of a united Continent with revolutionary nationalist liberal zeal. It was clearly against the interests of the British state, and so they fought against it, there's nothing exceptional in his thesis.

Napoleon did at least replace the arbitrary feudal law systems with Napoleonic civil law, but his main failure I think is to have both perpetuated such enormous wars through overambition, and fail too. The cost to Europe was enormous, no set of wars had ever been so costly, it was in many ways as much a World War as WW1.

[Clausewitz]

Napoleon did at least replace the arbitrary feudal law systems with Napoleonic civil law, but his main failure I think is to have both perpetuated such enormous wars through overambition, and fail too. The cost to Europe was enormous, no set of wars had ever been so costly, it was in many ways as much a World War as WW1.

I concur.

I think Napoleon had a genuine desire to advance humanity; he wasn't merely a power-hungry despot. I think as time went on his opinion of himself became exaggerated. But I think he was crude and lacked subtlety (to say the least) in terms of diplomacy; he alienated moderates not only in the UK.

When I think of "tyrant" I think of someone who lacks that basic sense of responsibility. A tyrant lacks benevolence. What Napoleon lacked as a diplomat and grand strategist, he did not lack as an administrator and reformer. I think that last quality separates him from being a tyrant as such.

[Red Rebel]

I think the term 'benevolent dictator' can be used when describing Napoleon. He introduced many democratic reforms, the French people loved him, and but he was still the Emperor.