The correspondences collection seems to be a very interesting read.
I've also enjoyed https://youtu.be/uRUfFeTmuc8 Henri Guillemin's 6 hours long presentation (French only, sorry). As someone who was only given a positive point of view growing up of Napoléon, I really appreciated the other side of the story.
I have yet to listen to The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast mentioned by the OP, but The Age of Napoleon is probably the best podcast I have ever listened to. I would strongly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in Napoleon.
"In The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape (Profile, 2018), Mark Braude shows how even while rendered ‘invisible’ in his new, tiny dominion, Bonaparte remained a figure of fascination for locals and visitors alike. He even became a kind of tourist attraction, with people travelling [sic] from around Europe (and Britain, too) in a bid to catch a glimpse of or even to meet the ‘Corsican ogre’. Some were invited in by Napoleon: the British politician John Macnamara, visiting Elba out of curiosity, had a long conversation with him, during which he could not stop rubbing his eyes in amazement."
I remember watching a B/W (50s?) film on N. (and wish I could recall the title) where a completely revisionist/conspiracy story of his 'fantastic' return from Elba to France was told. In that film, an English visitor basically green lighted his return to France based on revised geopolitical calculations of the British.
So, to conspiracy fans' delight, we find another British "Macnamara" in Wiki (whose bio is rather thin) [1] but at least includes this delicious little factoid: "Macnamara's personal assistant in 1935–36 was the Soviet spy Guy Burgess."
Very little is ever said (afaik) in general popular accounts and histories of Napoleon Bonaparte about the role of Bankers in his rise, fall, rise, and final fall. Dickens, in his A Tale of Two Cities (with one of the said "cities" possibly a wink-wink reference to the City of London) does have English characters in the employ of a certain "Tellson's Bank" that mysteriously have rather liberal freedom of movement between the two nations during the general period of the French Revolution.
"Tellson's Bank, Temple Bar, Fleet Street, London, England It is thought that Charles Dickens based Tellson's Bank on Child & Co Bank located at 1 Fleet Street in London. The bank is now owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland."
Well the fact that the UK bankrolled aka bribed a lot of the collation against France is well known.
Years ago I was at first Tuesday in London and thought that VC looks just like that Napoleonic bankers portrait that in all the history books - looked down and the name badge was "Rothschild" .
Russia defeated Napoleon more then anybody else. Yes Britain did a lot and helped with money, but fundamentally, just as in WW2 Russia defeated Napoleon.
This gets lost in the nationalist history that were written in the next 100 years.
Money and supplies is valuable, but the Russian Army broke the French army. Russian intelligence borrowed deep into the French state and had all the information Russian light cavalry cut Napoleon of from information and made him blind. Russian light cavalry captured his communication and that is how they learned Paris was not defended. Russia supplied the largest amount of troupes.
Russia was Prussias senior partner. German historians make a great deal about the 'Volkssturm' but in reality the Prussian army was dependent on the Russian state. Prussian artillery was using Russian artillery.
Check out:
> Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace
I'm thinking also of figures such as Georges Danton and his possible banker connections, so include the bankrolling of the toppling of the Capetian Dynasty in that equation.
In one of the films on F.R. (either Danton (1983) or La Révolution Française (1989)) Robespierre makes a remark to the committee at the night of the arrest of Danton, Desmoulins, Séchelles, and Philippeaux, along the lines of 'if we don't move now, he'll have funding from the bankers in three days'.
Napoleon should probably be actively forgotten, there's better people in history worth remembering. He was just a tyrant that caused a lot of suffering and death.
Cherrypicking only parts of history you like to be remembered is something totalitarians have always enjoyed. It's always a bad idea if you believe in freedom, human rights and democracy, no exceptions.
Maybe I phrased it badly. I think he's viewed too positively / heroically even, I think that's not warranted at all. And his actions should be re-evaluated.
But I'm not a historian, just a guy who likes reading and I haven't read anything yet that justifies for example when a modern day French Presidents honors Napoleon.
Sorry need to pick on the word "modern" because it insinuates these things only happened in the past and are out of the question today when we just have adapted the techniques to get away. Therefore I much recommend Treasure Island[1] which goes into the crimes of "modern" colonialism (French, British, US). In case of France especially interesting is Gabon and it's role until today in financing and legitimizing French wars. If one believes only a fraction of the things in this book it would justify the same language applied to our current systems.
There is the Code Napoleon, parts of which still form the basis of law in Germany and France. That was pretty progressive. Napoleon also is one the most successful, "best", military leaders in history. Right up there with people like Alexander the Great. His military reforms more or less paved the way for modern militaries ever since.
Historically, most of the Anti-French coalitions were led, and financed, by the British. So they are as much guilty of the Napoleonic Wars as Napoleon himself.
Do yes, Napoleon definitely is on of history's greats. Definitely worth remembering. And he would be even more so if he was a true class a a-hole. These people definitely should never be forgotten.
> Napoleon also is one the most successful, "best", military leaders in history.
The "best" most successful leaders don't get soundly beaten over and over again and eventually lose everything.
> Right up there with people like Alexander the Great.
Highly questionable, Alexander the Great actually won and won everywhere and didn't lose his empire until he died.
Napoleon is vastly overestimated in Western history. Not to mention that he left his solderers behind multiple times after his mistakes had gotten them captured over and over again.
He literally was the commander in control of the worst military failure in basically all of human history.
He had initiative and was a good battle leader at the helm of the most powerful country that was already very successful before he took over, but as all around military commander and strategist he had serious problems.
> Historically, most of the Anti-French coalitions were led, and financed, by the British. So they are as much guilty of the Napoleonic Wars as Napoleon himself.
The British are responsible French revolutionary armies moving into Netherlands, Norther Italy, Egypt and Switzerland? Britain is responsible for Napoleon leading 600k people into Russia?
After the Revolution the Revolutionary government including were seriously attempting to expand in all directions peace was very temporary. Russia tried peace with Napoleon but only subservience was good enough and that trigger an invasion.
> Do yes, Napoleon definitely is on of history's greats. Definitely worth remembering. And he would be even more so if he was a true class a a-hole. These people definitely should never be forgotten.
I agree he should be remembered, as most history should.
Napoleon blundered the Russian campaign, and as a direct result the Spanish one. Which got him to Elba. Only to come back and get a very close loss at Waterloo. That makes two serious defeats. All other campaigns were won since Egypt. Wellington was a worthy opponent so.
Was he power hungry? Sure. More than others? I don't think so, just more successful. Russia, at that time, was the only continental power left as a potential ally of the British. Which had opposed the French in every single war before. So yes, it was a viable campaign. One that cost him everything in the end. It was, IMHO, the last period which allowed for decisive battles. And Napoleon was really good at those.
He had issues in diplomacy. No surprise as the upstart among old nobility, so. And his economic policies were lacking as well. Doesn't mean that he is among the best military leaders so far. And again, a lot of his policies were really progressive. And sure, he built upon the Revolution. Nobody exists in a vacuum, Alexander built on his father's achievements. Ceasar on the Roman Republic. Just like everyone else.
Well he lost in Russian campaign. But after that there was still all of central Europe between him and Russian army. He then lost more in eastern German refusing to negotiate. Then Austria joined the war and he continued losing in Germany. Then he left Germany to France and lost in France again.
> Only to come back and get a very close loss at Waterloo.
Even had he won at Waterloo, there was 0% change it would not have ended the same way.
> That makes two serious defeats.
Actually far more then two.
> Wellington was a worthy opponent so.
Wellington is overrated, the reason Waterloo is so hyped its because its the only victory of the British on land and they did that with Prussian support. The Russian defeated Napoleon more then anybody else, and likely the Austrians after that.
> So yes, it was a viable campaign.
I'm not gone say it was not viable. But in terms of risk reward it was still bad strategy. He had many political options other then full on invading Russia.
> He had issues in diplomacy. No surprise as the upstart among old nobility, so.
They actually made amazing offers to him the he refused.
> Just like everyone else.
I would agree. I don't think he was uniquely bad. I'm just saying that I don't really think he ranks among the very best general/statesmen.
Yeah, it's one thing to question how historical figures are portrayed, and another to support actively erasing historical figures who did bad things by present day's moral standards.
I think it's best to remember history as it is, no worship or mixing it with present-day politics needed. Learning from history can be useful, but actions of historical individuals should also be seen in context of the world they lived in.
He is one of the key persons who managed to reduce the power of religious institutions. And thats a good thing. Religion created an exceptional cruel period in Europe for about 1300 years.
He didn't actually. Feudalism had ended long before. Feudalism is usually consider for early to high middle ages, by the late middle ages and early modern period the social structure had already changed considerably.
The problem is that the world 'feudal' is very overloaded. There are some historians that basically refuse to use it outside of a very limited perspective. Other historians (mostly non-medieval historians) use it for basically everything from 700 AD to 1700 AD. Medieval historians are not very happy with this.
The paper basically mentions this here:
> First, by the eighteenth century feudalism was primarily (but not solely) a system of property law rather than a mode of production or a form of social domination.
So basically their argument is that the type of property law changed under Napoleon. And that is probably fair (I need to read the whole paper). But I would say that 'ended feudalism'. Its probably a good thing, I would agree.
I must admit I don't know enough about property relation in France. I would like to read this paper in more detail. I read far more about Russia and Britain, stemming form my dislike of France.
This is a misunderstanding of the situation. Napoleon largely “started” his wars because the rest of monarchical Europe was conspiring to have him removed.
Conspiring? Other monarchies basically went to war to stop the French revolution so before Napoleon was even known (Napoleon got known through his victory in the "siege de Toulon" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Toulon )
Yes, of course I’m oversimplifying it. The greater point being that Napoleon didn’t start the series of wars as a conquerer, which is how he is often portrayed (especially in English language history.)
The French revolutionary regime started the wars and literally expend in all direction and were absorbing country after county.
Instead of negotiation an end to war they attempted to take much of Europe and Napoleon continued that.
Peace was temporary and only as long as you followed what Napoleon wanted.
Russia tried peace with Napoleon but they realized that Napoleon only accepted piece if he was in control and could dedicated all policies they should. Once they didn't he invaded.
I've also enjoyed https://youtu.be/uRUfFeTmuc8 Henri Guillemin's 6 hours long presentation (French only, sorry). As someone who was only given a positive point of view growing up of Napoléon, I really appreciated the other side of the story.