Napoleon, was he that great?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Robert Harvey certainly does not seem to think so, whether through his own opinion or through the evidence he gives.
In The War Of Wars Harvey really does give Boney's reputation and Myth a good thrashing, showing him to be considered by his more able Marshals as nothing but an equal, a partner in the splitting of Europes spoils. A maniac autocrat of the first order (he is most damning of his supression of the constitution by force) who were it not for the Scheming Talleyrand and Fuche would be lost on International and even national polotics. Was averse to any kind of peace as his power rested upon a wartime army and national cohesion.
Indeed in some of his private letters and accounts of his meetings with those with whom he was displeased. he comes across as childlike and politically inept.

I am no expert and I doubt any of us are but I still would ask for you're interpretation of Nappy.

Where to begin. Or where to end. You can fill a decently sized library with published opinions about Napoleon.

Was Napoleon that great? In my opinion, he was a great general, a great unifier. A giant of law. And a great hammer of progress, the man who put a bajonet in the hands of the enlightenment.
He was also a general who gambled and lost it all, a dictator, a divisive figure, the adventurer who lost Europe to the Restauration, the man who betrayed the Revolution.

I think general opinion varies along the above lines too. Overall, he still arouses the same sentiments today as he did when he was alive: Napoleon chastises France, bleeds her dry, betrays her, but his errors and crimes are forgotten in the drunk wallowing in the glory, the achievements, the grandeur.


I haven't read Robert Harvey's work. I googled for some reviews about his book. Few were very much in praise of it, his ‘The War Of Wars’. Below is what I think is actually a good summation of many reviews, not a proper review but an Amazon comment. I'll quote it, if only because the writer is named Louis:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Readable but awful history, 29 Aug 2007
By Louis Davout (London, England) - See all my reviews

Robert Harvey writes well enough, as a former journalist should, but, on the basis of this book anyway, he is not much of a historian. Not only is the book littered with factual errors - incorrect dates, wrongly rendered names, false 'facts', etc. - but his interpretations and arguments leave a lot to be desired also. His treatment of Napoleon is a case in point. Harvey basically presents us with a rehash of the old black legend, belittling Napoleon's achievements wherever possible (no matter how implausibly) and besmirching his character at every turn. Napoleon was not without serious flaws, of course, but to present him as a grotesque caricature is poor history and does nothing to develop our understanding of him or the period he dominated. One presumes Harvey's loathing for Bonaparte comes in part from his equally evident 'little England' view of history, which is another major weakness of this book. The wars which raged from 1792 to 1815 were far more than just a struggle between Britain and France, yet the impression given by this book is that other states played bit parts at best. While occasionally critical of Britain and British figures, Harvey's patriotism (or should that be jingoism?) nevertheless shines through clearly and one gets the sense that he genuinely believes that Britain was almost solely responsible for 'saving' Europe from the 'nightmare' of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. As someone who has read a lot about the era covered by this book, I would warn fellow fans of the period to steer clear, as they will find little new or interesting in it. Even less would I recommend it to readers new to the subject. Instead, I would advise anyone looking for a single volume covering similar ground to consider David Chandler's authoritative 'The Campaigns of Napoleon' which is unsurpassed in its military detail, David Gates's shorter but still excellent 'The Napoleonic Wars' or Michael Adams's 'Napoleon and Russia', which, despite the title, effectively covers the whole of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and, by putting the relationship between France and Russia (instead of France and Britain) at the heart of the story, provides a host of interesting new insights.

As for Napoleon = Hitler. There are some remarkable parallels. But not that many. History does not repeat itself.
As for a historical judgement about the two, ask yourself this: if Europe would've been unified by the sword, in which Europe would you rather have lived? One that has the slogan 'Kill the Untermensch, make way for the Master Race'? Or one whose battle cry is Liberty, equality, fraternity? One that, along with its armies, brought standardised laws, the metric system, emancipation of Jews, abolition of the feudal system, a Declaration of the rights of Man and of the Citizen?