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?

[Vladimir]

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?

Wasn't the metric system myth dispelled on page 1?

[Rodion Romanovich]

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?

That is quite some hyperbole! First of all, was it liberty to reward Spain, a good ally, with backstabbing, invasion, rape and massmurder? If Napoleon could do that to Spain, what would a victorious Napoleon not have done to the rest of Europe? To claim you're fighting for freedom when you're just massmurdering is not just massmurder but also hypocrisy. Let me examine each of your claims:
- "Napoleon defeated would have made Hitler victorious": most likely, nationalism and a state called Germany wouldn't even have arisen in the first place if Napoleon I and III hadn't launched their unprovoked attacks - and subsequent atrocies in the form of rape, murder and pillaging on the small, independent German duchies. These duchies had no involvement whatsoever with the countries that attacked the revolutionary France. They were conquered just because it was convenient to link up the conquered territories, much like Judaea was conquered without casus belli by the romans. I would actually have preferred living in a Europe where nazism had never arisen, over a Europe where first Napoleon massmurders and rapes over Europe, then Hitler and Stalin come too and repeat the job. Napoleonic imperialism and Hitler's nazism were not opposites in a zero sum game, they were the exact same type of things: horrible things.
- "standardised laws wouldn't have existed without Napoleon": there were laws everywhere in Europe before Napoleon, standardized for each region. The differences in law between different areas was due to less centralization and more local freedom, autonomity and democracy. Different parts of the country have different laws that are optimal. Equalizing everything and removing local freedom is only useful for facilitating despotism and centralization. Also worth mentioning is that Napoleon, like all other rulers famous for summarizing laws, failed to realize the madness of having more laws than any living human being can learn in a lifetime, and associated with breaking any of them, a severe punishment. Just putting all existing laws into a single book and removing local freedom isn't much of an achievement IMO. But summarizing, removing duplicates, finding common factors to drastically reduce the law, would have been an act not of genius, but of very basic, sound reasoning when it comes to organizational matters.
- "the metric system": I already showed on page 1 that this is wrong
- "emancipation of Jews": I take it you mean "increased respect and tolerance for" (excuse me for my poor English, it's not entirely clear to me what value the word emancipation has). Wiki says the following, and I think it summarizes the issue well (that whatever good effects may have come from Napoleon's behavior, it was not a goal of his, but merely a side-effect of his other goals - namely hunger for power):

Napoleon's personal attitude towards the Jews is not always clear, as he made a number of statements both in support and opposition to the Jewish people at various times. Historian Rabbi Berel Wein in Triumph of Survival states that Napoleon was primarily interested in seeing the Jews assimilate, rather than prosper as a separate community: "Napoleon's outward tolerance and fairness toward Jews was actually based upon his grand plan to have them disappear entirely by means of total assimilation, intermarriage, and conversion." This ambivalence can be found in some of his first definitively recorded utterances on this subject in connection with the question of the treatment of the Alsace Jews and their debtors raised in the Imperial Council on April 30, 1806.

The net effect of his policies, however, significantly changed the position of the Jews in Europe

When someone achieves good things by having bad intents, I'm not sure how they should be judged. At the very least, had he been alive now and striving for power over Europe, I would clearly have fought against him since his intent was most likely to eventually do a bad thing if he had succeeded in his (very unrealistic) military expansion goals. Perhaps lucky that he happened to die before he managed to do that? About the judgement over him as a dead man I'm as I said not sure. How should you judge someone whose actions happened to have good consequences, when his intentions, had he lived longer, would most likely have been very bad?
- "abolition of the feudal system": I can't see where on earth you got this claim from. The feudal system was mostly abolished during the late Medieval period, and the remnants of it was weakened most by the 17th century developments with increasing importance of trade, and increasing numbers and influence of the borgeioise (sp?), and general increase in industrialization and production. This is what allowed the French Revolution to take place, and also what enabled most other countries of the 19th century to revolt against aristocracy. Since almost everyone benefitted from overthrowing the aristocracy and the proletariat could do it because of these economical developments, I doubt any form of "spreading of the idea" (which could maybe, and only maybe, be credited to Napoleon's war campaigns of rape and murder) would have an impact even comparable to the impact of these basic society structure and economical changes which made revolts more likely to succeed.
- "a Declaration of the rights of Man and of the Citizen": which do you refer to?

Living at the end of the Enlightenment, Napoleon also became notorious for his effort to suppress the slave revolt in Haiti and his 1801 decision to re-establish slavery in France after it was banned following the revolution.
[...]
Napoleon is sometimes alleged to have been in many ways the direct inspiration for later autocrats: he never flinched when facing the prospect of war and death for thousands, friend or foe, and turned his search of undisputed rule into a continuous cycle of conflict throughout Europe, ignoring treaties and conventions alike. Even if other European powers continually offered Napoleon terms that would have restored France's borders to situations only dreamt by the Bourbon kings, he always refused compromise, and only accepted surrender.

[Peasant Phill]

Rodion, I understand some might for the most part only see the good things someone did, while others mostly see the attrocities. And as one of the few (the only one?) here that has a negative overall view of Napoleon, language and views tends to radicalise a bit. But try to be a bit objective.

...
- "Napoleon defeated would have made Hitler victorious": most likely, nationalism and a state called Germany wouldn't even have arisen in the first place if Napoleon I and III hadn't launched their unprovoked attacks - and subsequent atrocies in the form of rape, murder and pillaging on the small, independent German duchies
...

Where do you get this quote? I haven't read it in other posts.
You actually claim that Hitlers attrocities are Napoleons fault? Is Charlemagne also to blame? think about it.

- "standardised laws wouldn't have existed without Napoleon": there were laws everywhere in Europe before Napoleon, standardized for each region. The differences in law between different areas was due to less centralization and more local freedom, autonomity and democracy. Different parts of the country have different laws that are optimal. Equalizing everything and removing local freedom is only useful for facilitating despotism and centralization. Also worth mentioning is that Napoleon, like all other rulers famous for summarizing laws, failed to realize the madness of having more laws than any living human being can learn in a lifetime, and associated with breaking any of them, a severe punishment. Just putting all existing laws into a single book and removing local freedom isn't much of an achievement IMO. But summarizing, removing duplicates, finding common factors to drastically reduce the law, would have been an act not of genius, but of very basic, sound reasoning when it comes to organizational matters.

Again, no one claimed that there wouldn't have been standardised law. What was claimed is that he formed one that was an example/benchmark for future law codes. If you study constitutions all over Europe, you'll find a lot of similarities all tracable back to the code Napoleon.

I'm also quite amused when you use the word democracy for that day and age. I believe the credo was "everything for the people, nothing by the people" for most (if not all) European countries. There already was little freedom, why do you think the situation was so tense at the time?

I didn't comment on the rest as I'm not knowledgeable enough in those areas to reply.

Rodion, your opinion is aprreciated: not much of a debate if everybody agrees. But do try to be objective. I find it hard to take you seriously when you write rape and massmurder every other line.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Where do you get this quote? I haven't read it in other posts.

It's not a quote, it's a summary of his claim, which was:

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?

...which more or less said if Napoleon had lost earlier Hitler would have managed to do more damage, or could be interpreted that way. I wished to argue that such an interpretation is very nationalistic - and incorrect. And that even if that would be Napoleon's battle cry (which it wasn't btw, afaik), he didn't live up to this alleged battlecry.

You actually claim that Hitlers attrocities are Napoleons fault? Is Charlemagne also to blame? think about it.

No, I'm not claiming that Hitler's atrocities are Napoleon's fault. I'm arguing why it would be ridiculous to claim that success for Napoleon's would stand against success for Hitler. I however think that part of stirring up the troubles in Germany was Napoleon's fault. Just as the actions of Charles V - HRE and Spain, during the previous period, had no little part in causing French Imperialism, and so on. Almost all previous atrocities come back as part of the cause of each new atrocity one way or another. That is why I'm against all atrocities. If I'm among the minority whose life got better because of the action of one particular massmurderer, then I certainly won't support him because the next massmurderer, who hurt some grouping I belong to, is partially caused by the previous one. I will not concern myself with pointless moral judgements such as "how many percent of the guilt for atrocity x lies on person y", but merely notice that the "percentage", if any such measure could at all be invented or at all considered sensible, is larger than zero for most previous atrocities that happen geographically close enough, and that is enough to hate them - even those that by chance happen to be to your own benefit. Violence causes violence, so before you celebrate the violence of someone who drew violence over your enemies but that were neutral to him (thus no justification), remember that he also had part in creating the next such man, who instead happened to draw violence over your friends.

Rodion, your opinion is aprreciated: not much of a debate if everybody agrees. But do try to be objective. I find it hard to take you seriously when you write rape and massmurder every other line.

I find it hard to take someone seriously who supports a war without any positive result whatsoever. For a war to be positive and worth supporting, it has to have an end result that is greater than what's needed to compensate what the war itself is, namely - rape and murder. Often, people forget that the end result of the war must outweigh the rape and murder by far to be worth celebrating. Often, people just judge the outcome, and forget that what positive came out of the war, was far less valuable than avoiding the rape and murder would have been. This is why I often replace "offensive, unprovoked war" with "rape and murder". When we say "the end justifies the means", we must remember that the means are part of the end result: if you kill 1 million people to avoid having 2 million people dead, your end is not "avoid the death of 2 million people", but it is "murder 1 million people and save 2 million other people, and giving a bad name to morality and the concept of saving people's lives".

[Louis VI the Fat]

It's not a quote, it's a summary of his claim, which .. more or less said if Napoleon had lost earlier Hitler would have managed to do more damage, or could be interpreted that way.

That was not the intent of my statement. It was an off-hand remark about the oft-heard comparisons between Hitler and Napoleon. A comparison which, I think, somewhat fails to recognise the difference in historical contribution between Hitler Germany and Napoleonic France.

I did not imply any causal connection between the actions of Napoleon and the events in germany in 1933-1945. On the contrary, I think any assumption of a direct causality is slightly far-fetched.

What I meant was that, while it is true that both Hitler and Napoleon are megalomaniac warmongerers, the verdict on Napoleon must be less far less condemning.

Hitler's legacy is entirely negative. Napoleon's legacy is mixed. I for one would certainly prefer the (hypothetical) unified Europe under Napoleon above the one Hitler had in mind.

[seireikhaan]

Oh dear me. This was a rather interesting thread that very suddenly became rather venomous. Gentlemen, mayhaps we could step back a second and take a breather?

Anyhow, I shall present my opinion on the issue. First of all, we must define what is great. That will ultimately be a sticking point for nearly any argument made either for or against Napoleon. Now as for me, I look at 'great' as to what kind of impact this person made upon the world, what kind of innovations did they bring to the table, and lastly, what kind of support did this person have? The first is quite simple. Do they have a legacy? I do not view this in a moral perspective, fyi. As for the second, what kind of change did they bring about, and what sort of "ingenuity" of sorts did they show and execute. As for the last one, I think I might be aways off from some. While some may take credit away from rulers for conquests/defenses/conflicts won by their generals and staff, I consider it differently. From my perspective, the truly great surround themselves with greatness. It is shown throughout history that people tend to gravitate towards others like themselves; likewise, I believe that the great gather more great people to support them. It should be noted that my perspecitive's on 'great' merely reflect on history, and not so much on morality. I have a different 'great' that I use for ethical purposes. Similarly, if a person is strong enough in one category, they do necessarily need to be good in another category. IE-Ghandi. Didn't really surround himself with great people, but left an indelible mark on history, and brought about a unique idea of peacefull resistance, so even though he gets a 'F' in the third category, I still consider him great because he gets an A+ in the other two.

Now, as for Napoleon.

Did Napoleon leave a legacy? Certainly, he left a mammoth one. First of all, people followed his style of warfare for roughly 100 years, until advances in technology finally forced a new style. His administation has been copied by many, and not just for the name sake. He shook the political landscape of Europe, as evidenced by the sheer number of people who opposed him. As shown earlier, the second coalition against him was mind boggling to say the least. As stated earlier in the thread, the 2nd coaliton consisted of: Russia, Britain, Austria, Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples, Vatican. I would like to point out that the concept of the Ottomans and Austrians allying against shows how much power he had wielded. After all, the Ottomans and Austrians had been arch nemesis, and the fact that the Ottomans felt compelled to join with not only Austria, but Russia as well shows the amount of respect/fear other rulers had for him. Lastly, I would venture to say this, although I have no definitive proof. I would say that Napoleon helped spring nationalism onto a large scale. For the first time, actual nations were being born, as opposed to just rulers/nobles who enfored their power through sheer military might, and instead ruled through common support by the people. And not just of the French, but of other peoples who opposed and hated him. Lastly, he helped to sever the final ties of the Holy Roman Empire, which would open the way to a unification of a German state, rather than a HRE confederacy. A

Did Napoleon bring new ideas and innovation with him? Yes. He rallied so many French men into his cause that he brought about a new age of larger armies, which was fueled in part by the rise in nationalism, which I talked about earlier. He brought about tactical innovation, both on battlefield, and on the grand campaign scale, with the way he divided his opponents at times by managing to take the middle between allies and destroying them on at a time. He brought total government reform, bringing France out of the utter chaos of the revolution. He took a riotous state and formed a nation out of it, with uniform laws and measurements. Grade: A-.

And as for the third. Did Napoleon have a strong staff? Yes, from what I've gathered. However, I'll fully admit that I'm not as scholared on this issue. I'm afraid the United States school system doesn't do justice to history in general, and I have never gotte around to some of the finer details of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, one can point out that it is impossible for Napoleon to have won all the battles in his campaigns himself. But if someone could perhaps provide me with a 'list' of sorts detailing some of his commanders? Or perhaps links or even general summation? Grade: Incomplete.

So, was Napoleon great? For me, he was at least very, very close, and that is mostly because I am currently giving him an incomplete grade for the final category. If I was to take an educated guess at the last category, I would guess at a B+, which would put Napoleon at about an A- average, very good, in my opinion.

[Incongruous]

It always amuses me when those whom obviously loathe Napoleone's self spun mythos write a book and are torn apart for it.
Napoleone's legal system was put in place to symply create a service of yes-men. His one outstanding large scale battle was Austerlitz, a masterpiece of planning and manouvre. Otherwise he seemed to stoop to a simple slogging match of attrition, Borodino being a good example. He was in no way a revolutionary or humanitarian or indeed a good statesman. His nation was constantly at war and eventually they had enough of him. Tyrant is perhaps a good title for him.

Has anyone ever wondered aswell why he divulged himself of the Spanish campaign? Because he knew he could not win it perhaps? It would have been his utter and complete deafeat much like Russia was but more brutal.

But he was a master planner and rouser of men, a natural leader. His defence of France and his Italian campaign were feats of awsome ability, but they are only two small campaigns. In Egypt he betrayed his men in order to save himself from defeat and make himself more powerful in France.
An man with an impressive ego indeed.

He may not even have been the greatest commander of the period, but he was the best leader maybe.

So I feel that h was in no way a man above the rest, yet his own self-imaging and history have made him so.

He was still I think a great general of the first order but no more.

Just my two.

[Kralizec]

and subsequent atrocies in the form of rape, murder and pillaging on the small, independent German duchies. These duchies had no involvement whatsoever with the countries that attacked the revolutionary France. They were conquered just because it was convenient to link up the conquered territories, much like Judaea was conquered without casus belli by the romans.

These poor little German realms you mentioned were at this point all still part of the Holy Roman Empire. And it went different than the way you are suggesting it went.

Napoleon craved stepping in the footsteps of Charlemagne and styled himself Empereur in 1804. The HRE at that time still claimed to be the legitimate successors of the western Roman empire.
It's pretty clear that eventually, Napoleon would never have accepted coexistence with another Imperial pretendent. However the same went for Franz II, who joined with the Third Coalition and marched against Napoleon the next year.

After the Battle of the Three Emperors, the peace terms foresaw in the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund). The members of it recalled their representatives from the German Reichstag and only days later Franz II announced the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and he continued only as Emperor of Austria (a title he had given himself 2 years before that, just after Napoleon gave himself his)

Napoleon only annexed those HRE territories on the western bank of the Rhine. The rest went to the Rheinbund, wich was a sattelite state whose obligations to France were pretty much only to step out of the HRE and deliver troops for the French war effort. I'm not aware of what atrocities occurred in the annexed territories, presumably they weren't bad enough to earn specific mention (unlike say, Spain)

[Rodion Romanovich]

These poor little German realms you mentioned were at this point all still part of the Holy Roman Empire. And it went different than the way you are suggesting it went.

Note that my comment was in response to the possible interpretation of the claim above, that success of Napoleon stood against success of Hitler. I claim the opposite: Napoleon's atrocities didn't decrease Hitler's actions, but probably had part in causing German nationalism/imperialism. See my post above, where I in fairness also point out that the actions of Charles V - HRE and Spain - in the period before - probably caused the French nationalism, and that you can show for almost all atrocities that part of the cause for it was a previous atrocity. Violence causes violence, and supporting a massmurderer who killed your enemies and helped your friends, is irrational since his actions are part in creating the next massmurderer that kills your friends and helps your enemies.

Napoleon craved stepping in the footsteps of Charlemagne and styled himself Empereur in 1804. The HRE at that time still claimed to be the legitimate successors of the western Roman empire.
It's pretty clear that eventually, Napoleon would never have accepted coexistence with another Imperial pretendent. However the same went for Franz II, who joined with the Third Coalition and marched against Napoleon the next year.

The old aspiration to recreate Rome, that has caused so much trouble and death in our continent... *sigh*

I'm not aware of what atrocities occurred in the annexed territories, presumably they weren't bad enough to earn specific mention (unlike say, Spain)

The HRE was a very loose confederation - almost a collection of independent states - at the time. The annexed territories mostly went from almost autonomous, to annexation. Napoleon had no quarrel with the almost independent territories - his quarrel was with Austria.

And look at Spain. "Those poor little" Spanish? Are the actions in Spain, as carried out by Napoleon, good examples of how you would like leaders to behave? And bear in mind that the actions in Spain - the ruthless unprovoked backstabbing caused by nothing else than hunger for power, and caused the death and rape of huge numbers of Spanish civilians - is often claimed to have had a great part in causing the economical decline and subsequent instability in Spain that caused the Spanish civil war and the rice of the fascist Franco. Not to mention the other - very important - psychological effect it had to the rest of Europe: how could anyone in Europe be safe as long as France was strong, if what France did when she was strong was to do things such as the actions in Spain - unleashing rape and murder only to satisfy a pointless hunger for power? This was not an entirely fair picture of course, since the war in Spain was most likely NOT supported by most French citizens (but some Napoleon apologetics here seem to think it was...), but considering how many cheered on Napoleon and called him so great even then, that conclusion was quite easy to make, even if incorrect. So no wonder then that the independent states in the Italian peninsula and former HRE didn't resist much against the often brutal and violent uniting carried out by Garibaldi and Bismarck. The massmurderer and nationalist Napoleon saw them as untermenschen since they weren't French - but at least the massmurderers who now united them promised they were to be considered to have the same status as their conqueror - a preferable (if still horrible) alternative. Again, I will refrain from trying to say Napoleon caused x percent of this or that, but merely point out that his actions were part of the cause of many later atrocities, and pointing out how fragile diplomacy really is, and how even small atrocities (the annexation of part of the HRE), could be that little thing that ruins everything - and how a huge atrocity - such as the one in Spain - spreads general fear even to others than its immediate victims. In short - that when seeing an atrocity with seemingly positive end results, one should remember all the little effects it also has, that together can cause massive problems later, and as I pointed out - that every war, no matter how good its intention - in the end is just rape and murder. It's not often that the end result of unprovoked war or conquest becomes good enough that it can even come close to outweighing all these little dangerous effects, that always come from unprovoked war or abuse of strength.

Let me finally point out that my style of debating is not to state my opinion, but to give the arguments that together with the posts before approximately even out to the opinion I hold. My opinion in this case lies somewhere in between, but since there are so many posts above Napoleon's "greatness" I have pointed out all arguments for the other extreme view as I felt the picture given without them was incorrect and unbalanced. This seems to have resulted in many misunderstandings above as to what opinion I had (and probably in other debates as well ).

[Peasant Phill]

Let's just say Napoleon can be admired as a statesman while his other roles and character be a lot less desirable.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Well, I can agree that many of his isolated actions are worth studying and learning from. Of the larger compositions of his actions, only the "Code Napoleon", and his earliest campaigns mainly against Austria (because there he had a casus belli), are things that I would spontanously consider good. I suppose our opinions lie quite close then, in the end?

[Conradus]

if Napoleon III hadn't launched their unprovoked attacks...

If you're referring to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, this is hardly a fair statement. Both Napoleon III and Bismarck were searching for a conflict. Napoleon to re-establish France as the leading continental power, and Bismarck to unite al German nations under Wilhelm. Following Bismarck's Elms Dispatch, you can hardly say that the war was unprovoked. And the superiority of Prussia on the strategic branch, as well as better artillery and numerical superiority made victory almost definite before the war started.