Napoleon, was he that great?

[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.