Napoleon, was he that great?

[Rodion Romanovich]

“If you have any objections to the quote, you should discuss it with those who wrote it at wikipedia.” Well, I think you should. YOU choose this reference…

I appreciate if you discuss with me that you actually bother reading my posts:

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 ).

If you notice the posts above mine they are indeed full of unhistorical Napoleon apologetic statements. Basically giving credit for everything France did during Napoleon's time to Napoleon, and ascribing all failures of France at the time to "someone else". The truth is, the good things didn't came from a single persons. Just because you're a leader and can take the honor for every achievement of your country, it doesn't mean you deserve it.

I do understand now: You give your opinion whish you are entitled to do for course. These opinions are honourable as such.
However it is not History.

Blah blah you're no historical, I'm scientific/historical/academic/better than you/your opinion sucks... blah blah. Please play the ball not the man, and try to stick to the arguments. Unfortunately I still haven't seen that many arguments from your side. Either you repeat what I say in response to me, or at the few occasions you state the opposite of what I say, you lack both references and arguments for it.

Let’s examine how you work:

Even more personal attacks now? How about some argumentation for your claims instead of just pure nationalistic "you're wrong". I don't hold the "heroes" of my country above all criticism and ascribe all success of the country to them, and all failure of the country to the people. How about if I were to say now that everything France has done good now is due to Sarkozy or Chirac and all mistakes are the people's fault? Is that historical, fair or true? In 100 years your sons will probably sit and talk like that: "Oh, in the times of the great Chirac - he made the French football team win many Championships".

[...]

Interesting read, but unfortunately you can check on wikipedia or any other source that this isn't really how the battles are commonly described by historians.

So, when the French are out-number it is a French defeat and honourable victory for the Allies like in Laon or Arcis sur Aube, but when reverse, that is not so great.

Hm, who was the one that provided a long list of French victories only (accidentally mixed with a few defeats but which you claimed were victories - perhaps out of ignorance?) and ignored all defeats suffered by Napoleon? Or all his Pyrrhic or indecisive battle where he ruthlessly and without understanding of the problems it caused was prepared to suffer casualties such as 25,000-30,000 in a battle for virtually no gain at all, where a strategic manouver to avoid this would have been far more valuable. See especially his period from 1808 to 1815 for plenty of examples of this.

If the French population, tired of wars (civil wars, revolution and wars from 1792 to 1815), would have been frightened, Napoleon could have decided to carry on, as Davout wanted him to do.

Yeah yeah, [insert the name of the leader of my country at the time of its largest territorial extent] could really have won the war, if the people hadn't been so illoyal/weak/cowardly...

Now would you agree to this? (which is the opinion on Napoleon I'd like to state, in as few words as possible)
- it's not historical or realistic to ascribe every success of French arms of this era to one man, and ascribe every failure to others
- Napoleon, after the 4th coalition, had the option to settle with a stable peace, stop his expansion, and rather easily defending his position. At least 5,000,000 people less would have died, the possible linking of Spanish decline to the rise of Franco, and provoking a rise of German and Italian imperialism would perhaps have been avoided. When arriving at this point, it was obvious that the previous diplomatic manouvers had been close calls at times, so a skilled diplomat and politician would have been able to know at this time, that any further expansion - the choice Napoleon made - would lead to own destruction (after a long time of bloodshed).
- Napoleon did suffer from vanity in giving himself titles etc. His coup d'etat was illegal and unnecessary - it didn't strengthen France in any way. Also: if a revolution just overthrew absolutism, is it not to kill the revolution to reinstate the absolutism, by taking the title of emperor?
- if a man is your enemy and wants to conquer your country, it's easy for the authorities in that country to say that "opinion x that this enemy holds is bad, just look at what it has made him". Could this effect not have helped halting the spread of the revolution in Europe? Did not Tolstoy and others for example manage to demonize the revolutionary ideas in Russia so much just because of Napoleon's invasion? Didn't this help postponing the abolishment of serfdom in Russia? Or similar, in Britain?
- do you think a person threatening to conquer and annex your country, while killing many of your countrymen, or clever philosophers and scientists writing about why the ideas of freedom and equality are good, help most in making your country embrace these ideas? Do you think economical changes allowing for revolutions to take place, or the words "look, revolution is possible, if it isn't already obvious to you" do most to bringing revolution to an area? Just look at the American civil war and the French revolution. The Americans didn't invade France to make France make the revolution happen, yet the revolutionary ideas are often said to have gone from America to France. Is it a coincidence that almost only the Netherlands and Belgium (who didn't take much part in the wars of 1800 to 1816) embraced the revolutuion more than say the later Germany and Italy, along with Britain and Russia, whose only demonstration of the effects of revolution was blood?
- Austerlitz is not a good example of Napoleon's military skills. In Austerlitz, the opponents had so many justified excuses to lose. The battles of the six days campaign, and the actions in Italy, are better examples if you wish to claim Napoleon's tactics were good.
- The best way to victory is for the opponents to not fight hard, not think their fight matters much because their casus belli is nonexistent or weak, and they don't coordinate their actions well. Napoleon did have this advantage in his early wars. But this advantage was not created by Napoleon. Would Napoleon have had the ability to overwhelm Austria by a preemptive strike during the 3rd coalition war, if France's moral position and their outside rumor hadn't been comparatively good because the Bourbon dynasty countries were the ones who begun the wars of the period, by attacking France with very little casus belli? Napoleon's quick marching to Ulm wouldn't have been possible without that! Napoleon's own diplomacy didn't create such effects that went in synergy with his warfare, rather, they sabotaged it: united the enemies, strengthened their fighting spirit, strengthened their moral position and casus belli, and drew neutral powers into the conflict on the opposing side. Is it really fair to ascribe Napoleon's opportunities to use divide et impera to Napoleon, while forgetting the importance the previous diplomatic events had to allowing for them?

[Brenus]

“Let me finally point out that my style of debating is not to state my opinion”: That could be good if you shouldn’t have say “I disagree.” That is an opinion.

“No, Napoleon did NOT invent the metric system”: Oops, you didn’t read what I said. I said he SPREAD the metric system…

Now, more seriously
“Unfortunately I still haven't seen that many arguments from your side”: Unfortunately you have, just bad enough they are not really nor true or convincing… And you choose wisely to ignore the one presented to you…

“Either you repeat what I say in response to me, or at the few occasions you state the opposite of what I say,.” No, you said I repeat them, but de facto you never mentioned what I said: You presented Napoleon as the Ultimate Monster, and when I did point out he was far to be alone, you just said you never said that. This is, de facto, true. However, how you presented facts was intentional to create this impression.
Except of course that you stated: “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 bourgeoisie (sp?), and general increase in industrialization and production” which I think I said was no so exact…

“you lack both references and arguments for it”: Well, not you? From wiki, but you deny all responsibilities for them.

“Even more personal attacks now?” If you means by that when you made statement and then to reply to them is a personnel attack, well, we have a problem in debating…
When for two quite identical outcomes for battle, one won by Bucher (Napoleon escape), one by Napoleon (Blucher escaped) you put the defeat each time on Napoleon (pff, he didn’t win, pff he let Blucher escaped), I think that to question the way you analyse events is THE thing to do…
When without even a thought you claim than the French have upper-hand in men and material against all logic (after Russia), you expect others NOT to question this.

“you can check on wikipedia or any other source”. Others sources, definitively… I am NOT a specialist of Napoleon Period...

“accidentally mixed with a few defeats but which you claimed were victories perhaps out of ignorance” Hum, not nice for somebody claim superior moral ground. No, rest assured that I went in a specialised site (by the way, English) for this kind of knowledge…

“the people hadn't been so illoyal/weak/cowardly...” Not what I said. For me Napoleon lost the wars after Russia and the Campaign for France. Perhaps it will surprise you, but I really don’t care too much about events from 200 years ago… Almost…

“Perhaps if you read my posts above you would see that I took England as an example of where the revolution failed - because of Napoleon's expansionism making it easy to propagandise against the revolutionary ideas.”
Yep, the European Monarchy just waited Napoleon to start the war against France. Ooops, “the principal parties of the first attempt to defeat the French revolution were Austria and Prussia, the leaders of which - Frederick William II and Leopold II - wanted to restore King Louis XVI to the throne.
The execution of Louis XVI catapulted Britain into the alliance, with Spain joining in March of 1793.
In August of 1792, an 80,000-man army entered France under the reticent Duke of Brunswick, capturing key fortresses on its march towards Paris.
Half of the force was Prussian and 30,000 were Austrian, French émigrés and minor German states made up the rest." The rest is History.


I kept the best part for the end:
Ulm conflict: 235,000 French vs 72,000 Austrians
Ulm was not really a battle, but rather a victory of manoeuvre for Napoleon.
By manoeuvring his forces around the 40,000 Austrians in the city of Ulm and cutting their supply lines he forced Mack into an untenable situation.
The Austrian general tried twice to break through the encircling French, at Haslach and Elshingen, but failed to do so.
With no Russian reinforcements nearby, Mack surrendered his 27,000 men.
A smaller force of cavalry, 13,000 men under Archduke Ferdinand had earlier split with the beseiged force but surrendered to Murat at Trochtelfingen while another 12,000 men did the same at Neustadt. Austria was effectively out of the war.


- Austerlitz conflict: 75,000 French vs 80,000 fatigued, demoralized Austrians - barely regrouped, and newly arrived Russians
So the Austrian, being in their country, were fatigued and demoralised when the French walking from the Pas de Calais (where they were waiting the fleet to go to invade England) were in great form and full of optimism…

The key to Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz was that Kutuzov more or less at death threat from the Tsar had orders to attack despite having a slightly numerically inferior army, with communication difficulties with the demoralized Austrians he had to cooperate with to get even close to Nappy's numbers, inferior mobility for his artillery, and perfect defensive terrain for Nappy. If you are to pick an example of well fought battles in Nappy's life, I think Austerlitz is a bad choice
You are right: To be on the top of the hill with your artillery, to have plain view on the enemy’s position, outnumbering him around 10.000 soldiers, in your own soil is a great disadvantage.

Regarded as Napoleon's greatest victory, Austerlitz was a sublime trap that destroyed the armies of his enemies Russia and Austria.
Tricking his opponents into thinking he was weaker than he actually was, and then calling in nearby reinforcements, Bonaparte initially met the combined Allied army of 85,000 men and 278 guns with just 66,000 men.
The French emperor deliberately abandoned a strong central position on the Pratzen Heights and left his right flank weak.
The Allies eagerly moved forward to occupy the heights and then weakened the centre to crush the French right.
As the bulk of Austrian and Russian troops attacked, Davout's III Corp arrived to bolster the French line.
With more and more Allied troops sucked into the attack, Bonaparte launched an assault that took back the Pratzen Heights and split the enemy.
After much hard fighting the French crushed the Allies. Thousands of fleeing troops drowned when a frozen lake split under the weight of men and guns.
French losses amounted to 8000 while the Russian and Austrian emperors, present at the battle, saw more than 27,000 men killed, wounded and captured. Bonaparte also captured 180 cannon.

“it's not historical or realistic to ascribe every success of French arms of this era to one man, and ascribe every failure to others” Agree

-“Napoleon, after the 4th coalition, had the option to settle with a stable peace”
Agree with the problem that the Pitts wouldn’t allow it…

“Napoleon did suffer from vanity in giving himself titles etc. His coup d'etat was illegal and unnecessary - it didn't strengthen France in any way. Also: if a revolution just overthrew absolutism, is it not to kill the revolution to reinstate the absolutism, by taking the title of emperor?” Agree

“if a man is your enemy and wants to conquer your country, it's easy for the authorities in that country to say that "opinion x that this enemy holds is bad, just look at what it has made him". Could this effect not have helped halting the spread of the revolution in Europe? Yes and No. I don’t think that it postponed any thing due to the nature of Napoleon enemies. They were absolute Monarchs as the proved it in re-imposing Louis XVIII on the Throne of France

”Do you think a person threatening to conquer and annex your country, while killing many of your countrymen, or clever philosophers and scientists writing about why the ideas of freedom and equality are good, help most in making your country embrace these ideas? Well, it was well summary by Robespierre saying “People don’t like armed prophets”. So I would agree.

“Austerlitz is not a good example of Napoleon's military skills. In Austerlitz, the opponents had so many justified excuses to lose” Fully disagree. Auzterlitz is the clear implementation of a concept and a plan mixed with audacity and luck.

“The best way to victory is for the opponents to not fight hard, not think their fight matters much because their casus belli is nonexistent or weak, and they don't coordinate their actions well. Napoleon did have this advantage in his early wars. But this advantage was not created by Napoleon”. Napoleon inherited of a lot of things. However, credit was given to him (the Army strength for ex, is due to Carnot). However to blame Napoleon alone for the wars is to underplay the role of the Pitts, the Austrian Empire and all others sovereigns.

[Rodion Romanovich]

“No, Napoleon did NOT invent the metric system”: Oops, you didn’t read what I said. I said he SPREAD the metric system…

Well how do you explain that he was the one who lifted the ban on the system that was before the revolutionary government introduced the metric system? Wouldn't those effects cancel out each other?

You presented Napoleon as the Ultimate Monster

This is pushing it quite a bit, don't you think? You're free to reread my posts.

Except of course that you stated: “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 bourgeoisie (sp?), and general increase in industrialization and production” which I think I said was no so exact…

See the highlighting, and compare with your own text, which is indeed just an elabortation of exactly this.

“you lack both references and arguments for it”: Well, not you? From wiki, but you deny all responsibilities for them.

In one case above, I clearly stated that in response to claims bordering to "Napoleon was the Messiah who saved all Jews" that there were many who disagreed, and took an example from wiki of a rabbi who had another perspective of this issue. The opinion I stated was that indeed, the idea that Napoleon was a flawless hero who heroically saved all Jews is not realistic. I didn't claim Napoleon was an arch-enemy of Jews, I claimed that he was not a flawless hero and savior, and that's as far as the claim went. But if you keep imagining what you read in my posts, then you will keep misunderstanding.

“Even more personal attacks now?” If you means by that when you made statement and then to reply to them is a personnel attack, well, we have a problem in debating…

The use of "Let’s examine how you work" is somewhat suspicious in a post of a debater claiming to concentrate on the arguments instead of the man.

When for two quite identical outcomes for battle, one won by Bucher (Napoleon escape), one by Napoleon (Blucher escaped) you put the defeat each time on Napoleon (pff, he didn’t win, pff he let Blucher escaped), I think that to question the way you analyse events is THE thing to do…
When without even a thought you claim than the French have upper-hand in men and material against all logic (after Russia), you expect others NOT to question this.

Well let's put it this way: you provide a list of Napoleon's victories only - that is your intention. Unfortunately you accidentally mixed in a few defeats. Then you complain when I - from your biased selection of a list point out those that were defeats???

“accidentally mixed with a few defeats but which you claimed were victories perhaps out of ignorance” Hum, not nice for somebody claim superior moral ground. No, rest assured that I went in a specialised site (by the way, English) for this kind of knowledge…

And still, you accidentally got a few defeats on your list of "victories"? Perhaps your source wasn't too reliable after all.

The rest is History.

I don't see how this goes against my claim. As you can see above I clearly wrote that the British started that war.

I kept the best part for the end:
Ulm conflict: 235,000 French vs 72,000 Austrians
Ulm was not really a battle, but rather a victory of manoeuvre for Napoleon.
By manoeuvring his forces around the 40,000 Austrians in the city of Ulm and cutting their supply lines he forced Mack into an untenable situation.
The Austrian general tried twice to break through the encircling French, at Haslach and Elshingen, but failed to do so.
With no Russian reinforcements nearby, Mack surrendered his 27,000 men.
A smaller force of cavalry, 13,000 men under Archduke Ferdinand had earlier split with the beseiged force but surrendered to Murat at Trochtelfingen while another 12,000 men did the same at Neustadt. Austria was effectively out of the war.

Wow, that's quite a way of using details to try to hide the most important fact: that Napoleon had more than 3 times as many troops as the Austrian general.

- Austerlitz conflict: 75,000 French vs 80,000 fatigued, demoralized Austrians - barely regrouped, and newly arrived Russians
So the Austrian, being in their country, were fatigued and demoralised when the French walking from the Pas de Calais (where they were waiting the fleet to go to invade England) were in great form and full of optimism…

Hm, I wonder what causes more demoralization... The defeat and death of hundreds of thousands of your own troops in the previous 3months, or marching? If you would have to pick one side to fight on, based on morale, which side would you choose? Also perhaps you may even then consider, isn't it a bit longer march from Russia to Austria, than from Pas de Calais?

The key to Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz was that Kutuzov more or less at death threat from the Tsar had orders to attack despite having a slightly numerically inferior army, with communication difficulties with the demoralized Austrians he had to cooperate with to get even close to Nappy's numbers, inferior mobility for his artillery, and perfect defensive terrain for Nappy. If you are to pick an example of well fought battles in Nappy's life, I think Austerlitz is a bad choice
You are right: To be on the top of the hill with your artillery, to have plain view on the enemy’s position, outnumbering him around 10.000 soldiers, in your own soil is a great disadvantage.

Battle map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ember_1805.gif
Topographic map: http://pics.city-data.com/topo/tpc15508.png
Positioned in a protective position behind a river bank is not to be at disadvantageous ground. He had the choice between high ground for part of the army and relatively bad protection for the rest, or a rather solid protection everywhere from a river bank. A rather simple choice, not worth calling him a genius for that. The allies are demoralized and fatigued and have to attack over a river. The immobilility of their artillery is well illustrated by the fact they have to choose to put it on a hill: it is so immobile that it is worth more having all of it statically in a single position, than manouvering it. Despite the height, however, it has difficulty reaching the French positions because there are smaller hills and heights, and trees, and a soft river bank in front of the French, so bouncing hits can't be scored either. The French artillery is in a much better position - it can fire concentrated fire at anyone crossing any of the river fords. Note also that Kutuzov before the battle is quoted to have commented on the impossibility of winning the battle if attacking, whereas on defense he would have won. Is it a good example of a defending general's skill when the attacker before the battle says that he knows for sure he would lose if he had to attack, and attacks only because he's ordered to it by the Tsar and can't say no because the Tsar won't tolerate that?

“it's not historical or realistic to ascribe every success of French arms of this era to one man, and ascribe every failure to others” Agree

-“Napoleon, after the 4th coalition, had the option to settle with a stable peace”
Agree with the problem that the Pitts wouldn’t allow it…

“Napoleon did suffer from vanity in giving himself titles etc. His coup d'etat was illegal and unnecessary - it didn't strengthen France in any way. Also: if a revolution just overthrew absolutism, is it not to kill the revolution to reinstate the absolutism, by taking the title of emperor?” Agree

I'm glad you agree to the most important points

“if a man is your enemy and wants to conquer your country, it's easy for the authorities in that country to say that "opinion x that this enemy holds is bad, just look at what it has made him". Could this effect not have helped halting the spread of the revolution in Europe? Yes and No. I don’t think that it postponed any thing due to the nature of Napoleon enemies. They were absolute Monarchs as the proved it in re-imposing Louis XVIII on the Throne of France

Well, did you think the revolutions against the absolute monarchs in the countries outside France would come from the absolute monarchs themselves? Of course not - it would have to come from the people. And the absolute monarchs had an excellent chance of preventing the people from rising by pointing at Napoleon and saying "look, this is what revolution gives you - instead of overthrowing the current absolutism balanced with a parliament (Britain), you would end up getting a totalitarian Emperor - the very symbol of absolutism!"

To say Napoleon's actions speeded up the spread of the ideas of the revolution, is IMO much the same as saying the terrorists of today do well in spreading their ideas in the western world by means of their terror. Do they, really? I don't think they do! Or saying Napoleon "spread ideas of liberty" when what he did was to attack many neutral countries, isn't that an as archaic view as saying the romans "spread civilization" when for example the romans conquered Gaul, Germania, Dacia, Judaea, and Mesopotamia (to take examples of some of the elast justified campaigns they carried out)? Sure enough some technology reached the provinces this way, but calling the conquest a glorious spread of enlightenment is not a very fair picture. And could very well be why all the innocents who were struck by this became very, very angry in the period following the military weakening of the empire. Being called an unwashed barbarian who should be thankful, for being attacked (and war = rape and murder), doesn't really make you very happy and peaceful, now does it? Would you like to be conquered by a force of stinking soldiers raping your women and killing many of your men, while crying they are fighting for liberty, with a lot of neutral people cheering on them and saying how heroic and great they are for conquering? I wish Voltaire was here to phrase what I just said in an even more clear way...

”Do you think a person threatening to conquer and annex your country, while killing many of your countrymen, or clever philosophers and scientists writing about why the ideas of freedom and equality are good, help most in making your country embrace these ideas? Well, it was well summary by Robespierre saying “People don’t like armed prophets”. So I would agree.

I'm glad you agree, though I fail to realize how you could in the quote before this one talk about Napoleon's heroic spreading of the revolutionary ideas.

“Austerlitz is not a good example of Napoleon's military skills. In Austerlitz, the opponents had so many justified excuses to lose” Fully disagree. Auzterlitz is the clear implementation of a concept and a plan mixed with audacity and luck.

I disagree completely. Historians have put emphasis on the campaign of Austerlitz because of it's seemingly big political impact - from Austerlitz until the invasion of Spain (3 years) Boney didn't face any notable opposition. They also put emphasis on it because of the romantic mythology surrounding it. But if you look at the actual battle it seems like kindergarten warfare in comparison to most other battles of the period. Similar to how Waterloo was won more by lack of tactics from Napoleon, than by abundance thereof from Wellington. Yet, many semi-religious Napoleon worshippers who claim Waterloo was lost because lack of Napoleon's tactics rather than Wellington's skills (thus refusing to give credit to Wellington), refuse to do the same with Napoleon at Austerlitz. Why on earth pick Austerlitz?

“The best way to victory is for the opponents to not fight hard, not think their fight matters much because their casus belli is nonexistent or weak, and they don't coordinate their actions well. Napoleon did have this advantage in his early wars. But this advantage was not created by Napoleon”. Napoleon inherited of a lot of things. However, credit was given to him (the Army strength for ex, is due to Carnot). However to blame Napoleon alone for the wars is to underplay the role of the Pitts, the Austrian Empire and all others sovereigns.

No, I'm not blaming Napoleon for "all the wars". I'm blaming him for those of the wars that he created: mainly versus the Italian factions, the HRE factions, Spain and Russia, and how aggressively he held on to these lands - how in many cases he hurt them more than for instance Austria which was his real enemy. He rewarded neutrality and alliance with worse bloodshed, than he rewarded unprovoked attacks (Austria) with. The sheer impact of this on the century after him can't be overestimated. Is it a coincidence that it was Italy, Germany, Spain and Russia that became the birth places of trouble shortly afterwards? And that all countries started mistrusting each others, fearing neutrality and allies just as much as enemies? Not a good basis for peace.

As can be seen in my summary above, France could handle the wars with Austria and other enemies very well, winning them with minimal own casualties and enormous Austrian losses in each battle. But they had extreme problems handling the wars that Napoleon through diplomatic blunders started with the neutral powers. In the summary above, counting the diplomatic failures, I see that Napoleon was responsible for 4 out of the 5 diplomatic blunders that France made in this period. If they hadn't happened, and Boney (restricted to being a military commander rather than a politician) would have kept beating the Austrians, while maintaining moral high ground by not drawing in any neutrals, and denouncing and avoiding any imperialistic ambitions, they would eventually have made the Austrians stop their repeated attacks, because then the Austrians wouldn't have kept receiving a promise of moral support - and eventually military support - from a coalition every time. With their losses mounting enough, the Austrian people and its army could very likely have revolted and the country descended into internal chaos and revolution - which would have meant a total, lasting victory for Napoleon in the continent. With such a victory it's clear that the French republic could have built up a long term plan to deal a severe blow to the British as well. Even without such a victory, and sticking only to not drawing more neutrals into the conflict, that would have been possible. The resources of revolutionary France would no doubt have allowed the rebuilding of the lost ships from the Nile and Trafalgar if this strategy had been chosen. Yet Napoleon chose the strategy that would leave all of Europe in a gigantic mess for the entire next century. Is it a coincidence that Nietzsche would next century call out "death to morality", after many had experienced the Napoleonic imperialism invading neutral and allied land and punishing it harder than he punished the land of real enemies, all under the banner of morality, freedom and liberty? If you are to be evil when you fight, at least have the decency and don't write "liberty" on your banner.

In summary, Napoleon had a choice between an incredibly great scenario, and an incredibly bad one for his entire continent - a choice that not many human beings get in their life. And without hesitation, he chose the latter (particularly in 1808, but the many small diplomatic blunders from 1796 to 1808 also had an important impact). He was so eager to chose the morally inferior alternative always, even when the same alternative also was what hurt himself most. I think that those who celebrate Napoleon as a hero should consider the fact that his impact on the neutral countries he attacked wasn't positive - it was negative, and negative in a far from negligible way.