Napoleon, was he that great?

[Geoffrey S]

He weakened his country and caused the defeat of the revolutionary ideas of freedom, justice, equality before the law, and chances of achievments and self-fulfillment in life not depending on how rich your parents were.

His country was already in shambles after this great revolution had utterly failed to achieve equality and justice to all, descinding into a bloody anarchy. Considering the backdrop I find his achievements all the more remarkable. And as AntiochusIII very rightly points out, he did bring such values to the rest of Europe, particularly in the Low Countries and the German states.

It wasn't respect and skill, but scare tactics and propaganda. Propagandaic indoctrination at school age and at special military training camps. Telling them they were fighting for the revolution, when they were only fighting to satisfy Nappy's hunger for land and thirst for blood.

And isn't that skill in its own fashion? No-one had done so quite that effectively before.

Hitler and Stalin also "made Europe into what we see today". Such a statement is not necessarily positive. All credit Napoleon fans give Napoleon really belongs to the Revolution and the people's fight for freedom and justice. Napoleon did not want to fight for these things, he wanted to fight. And to fight, he pretended he fought for these things and abused the trust of the masses while he was still too weak to be deposed of, and once he had deployed all the tools of a dictator to be able to terrorize and murder any dissenters, he went even more mad and backstabbed and invaded his allies in Spain and invaded Russia. And when in Spain the people revolted because they didn't like being raped and murdered at the whims of some alcoholized mob of French soldiers, he executed masses of civilians, using methods of occupation which clearly inspired Adolf Hitler during his occupation of France and other countries during ww2. Napoleon also inspired Hitler with his use of propaganda, his use of secret police and control over the population, and with his references back to ancient and Medieval times.

That's pretty angry. Napoleon changed the face of Europe; in my opinion, that is 'great', since the term does not imply a moral judgement to me, else how can anyone who ordered the deaths of thousands be considered 'great'?

[CountArach]

When you say Great, are we talking the whole, or militarily? I will make a larger post based on your answer to this.

[Julian the apostate]

I suppose that would also depend on whether you qualify it as him simply or him and his staff. Waterloo proved that Napoleons ability was severely limited without his chief of staff Berthier. Thus it seems like even from a military perspective everything depends on the men under you. Generals are great and all but a general with a bad chief of staff or worse bad NCOs is crippled.

From a political economic standpoint Napoleon was of course a general and of course thought that military power would translate to Frances domination of europe and that the other powers would stop sending armies

[Lord Winter]

I think its kind of ironic that most of the people arguing against Napolean adorn Alexander. Remember Alexander had his India to compare with (not quite a russia since he was only turned back), but certainly a failure. I think its remarkable that he not only overcame alot of land but did it against competent powers, instead of Alexander's degrading Persian Empire. Having a few mistakes or a short lived empire dosn't make you terriable, it just dosn't make you invincable. Which is not the same of not being great.

[Incongruous]

Ok, before his bloody coup Napoleone was at best just another runner many other men were far more admired by the army and people, Nappy was lucky to gain the cooperation with Talleyrand and Fuche men who kept his non-stop wars going. These three men allowed each other to gain power. He was the leader of a nation so millitary victory itself is only one facet. In politics and diplomacy he was an idiot and nothing more, his supposed great remaking of Frances political system was a complete sham, a puupet show to give his brutal autocracy some vestige of legitimacy.
I see in Harvey perhaps a man looking for reputation but also one who has seriuosly questioned the Napoleonic myth. Again this is me. Im only 18 and have only read really big books since 13.

[InsaneApache]

Not a great fan of Boneys personally. I remember the Wellington quote "They're coming at us in the same old style. Well, then we shall meet them in the same old style."

OTOH he did something remarkable in my book. He dismantled the Inquisition and took their records back to France (albeit a lot were lost along the way), freed the Jews from the ghettos and removed the compulsion for them to wear distinctive cone shaped hats. Rather a different take on him being an 18th century Hitler IMO.

[Pannonian]

Not a great fan of Boneys personally. I remember the Wellington quote "They're coming at us in the same old style. Well, then we shall meet them in the same old style."

OTOH he did something remarkable in my book. He dismantled the Inquisition and took their records back to France (albeit a lot were lost along the way), freed the Jews from the ghettos and removed the compulsion for them to wear distinctive cone shaped hats.

Did those hats have "D" written on them?

[Rodion Romanovich]

OTOH he did something remarkable in my book. He dismantled the Inquisition and took their records back to France (albeit a lot were lost along the way),

Napoleon's reign of terror, rape and murder in Spain only saw the formal abolishment of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was de facto abolished more than 15 years earlier.

freed the Jews from the ghettos and removed the compulsion for them to wear distinctive cone shaped hats. Rather a different take on him being an 18th century Hitler IMO.

Hitler was considered a liberator in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland for driving out the Soviet oppressors. That didn't prevent him from being a massmurderer against Jews. Napoleon, being helpful to Jews, didn't prevent him from being a massmurderer against others. You can't say massmurder to one people is ok because the massmurderer did some good things to some other people.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, before his bloody coup Napoleone was at best just another runner many other men were far more admired by the army and people, Nappy was lucky to gain the cooperation with Talleyrand and Fuche men who kept his non-stop wars going. These three men allowed each other to gain power. He was the leader of a nation so millitary victory itself is only one facet. In politics and diplomacy he was an idiot and nothing more, his supposed great remaking of Frances political system was a complete sham, a puupet show to give his brutal autocracy some vestige of legitimacy.
I see in Harvey perhaps a man looking for reputation but also one who has seriuosly questioned the Napoleonic myth. Again this is me. Im only 18 and have only read really big books since 13.

I agree completely

I think its kind of ironic that most of the people arguing against Napolean adorn Alexander. Remember Alexander had his India to compare with (not quite a russia since he was only turned back), but certainly a failure. I think its remarkable that he not only overcame alot of land but did it against competent powers, instead of Alexander's degrading Persian Empire. Having a few mistakes or a short lived empire dosn't make you terriable, it just dosn't make you invincable. Which is not the same of not being great.

Napoleon made far more disastrous mistakes than he did brilliant things, that's the problem. His arrogance and overestimating of his abilities, and hunger for power, for example. He should have realized in the first place that he wasn't suited to being anything else than artillery commander or communication link between his more able marshals (which is the role he held during the early victories). When he started to take more initiative in the field by commanding his marshals instead of being the one who communicated between them (and stopped listening to their advice), and didn't realize he had nothing to do on the throne of a country, he and France started losing massively. I don't think Alexander deserves much more credit than Napoleon, since he like Napoleon had his uber-high quality army given to him when he came to power. It isn't known much about how despotic Alexander was as a leader, but I guess we wouldn't admire him as much if we had known more about his personality. About Napoleon we do know what he did, as we do with Hitler.

His country was already in shambles after this great revolution had utterly failed to achieve equality and justice to all, descinding into a bloody anarchy. Considering the backdrop I find his achievements all the more remarkable.

The country was tired of the internal problems, and wanted any leader who would promise to end it. This could be done in two ways: establishment of law and order through police and methodical work by the revolutionary government as was being done, or through a military leader turning the country into a military dictatorship by claiming power and murdering or repressing the opinions of all dissenters. Note that Napoleon's coup d'etat happened at a time when the French republic was comparatively calm inside. The only threat against the Republic at that time was that its military had been weakened by Napoleon's defeat in Egypt.

And as AntiochusIII very rightly points out, he did bring such values to the rest of Europe, particularly in the Low Countries and the German states.

This is wishful pro-Napoleonic thinking. The Chmielnicki Uprising, 1648-1654 in Poland, and the Time of Troubles in Russia, 1598-1613, are two examples of very successful uprisings against nobility that happened in East Europe almost 100 years before. By 1800, the Englightenment ideas had eliminated most religious fundamentalism and authority over most of Europe anyway. The Spanish inquisition for example, was already gone in everything but name. The revolutionary ideas were spreading all over Europe without the help of Napoleon. In fact, it's more probable that Napoleon's imperialism was what above all prevented other countries, for example England, from having any revolution at the time, because it was easy for the authorities to argue that one shouldn't copy the behavior of a massmurdering maniac like Napoleon. The revolutionary ideas were certainly not helped to spread over Europe by the unprovoked backstabbing murder and raping expedition into Spain. Napoleon's actions in fact delayed revolutionary ideas from gaining influence in the rest of Europe, making it take until 1848 until anything noteworthy happened again, because who could talk in favor of the Revolutionary ideas when talking positively of these ideas was, by propaganda from the nobility and the likes, the same as talking positive of the massmurderer Napoleon?

And isn't that skill in its own fashion? No-one had done so quite that effectively before.

Propaganda is as old as civilization itself. It has been used since the time of medicine men and shamans in the earliest nature religions. It doesn't require skills, since the human brain by default trusts rather than critically evaluates, as has been shown by various experiments and scientific publications.

That's pretty angry. Napoleon changed the face of Europe; in my opinion, that is 'great', since the term does not imply a moral judgement to me, else how can anyone who ordered the deaths of thousands be considered 'great'?

I define greatness as something you should try to immitate. Napoleon is not somone I wish anyone would immitate.

[econ21]

I don't think Alexander deserves much more credit than Napoleon, since he like Napoleon had his uber-high quality army given to him when he came to power.

Alexander inherited a high quality army, that is true. Napoleon - I am not so sure. I think one of the things that makes him considered a great general is that he often took demoralised armies (as in his early Italian campaigns) or weakened scratch armies (as in 1813-14) to achieve striking victories. Indeed, if there is an idea that the French Napoleonic army was "uber-high quality", then Napoleon probably deserves a lot of credit for that achievement.

However, one under-emphasised aspect about the French Napoleonic military was it quantity rather than quality. Drawing upon the spirit of the revolution, inspired by Napoleon's militaristic goals and benefiting from demographics which gave France a relatively large population at the time, Napoleon started levying large quantities of men into the army. So when he achieved some of his great victories - e.g. at Ulm - he was doing so with great material superiority. His enemies gradually caught up with him - raising larger and larger armies - until you end up with some battles so large they cannot be decided in a day (Wagram, Moskowa, Leipzig). I guess Napoleon can take some of the "credit" for such mass mobilisations, but they do mean that some of his victories were less attributable to his own genius or the high quality of his troops than is commonly thought.

In many ways, the Napoleonic wars are a very suitable subject for a Total War game, as he seems to embody that philosophy - as increasingly did his opponents.