Napoleon: Life & Reputation

Referring to the American Revolution as 'someone else's civil war' presents a myopic viewpoint of the Revolution.

One of the points that the Americans made against Great Britain was that while they did consider themselves Englishmen, they weren't treated that way.

@Hans - Karl Weiß I think you are right. Whilst I don’t necessarily think that Napoleon‘s slide to being emperor was ever what the revolution was meant to be about I think his consolidation of power and stabilisation and reform of France prevented the revolution from being extinguished and guaranteed its survival. Often in times of upheaval the country needs a strong leader for a time. But I think that the direction he was moving in was ultimately towards another aristocracy. He was an enlightened despot after all and I don’t think France would have ever accepted that as the final destination.

He also read ancient history and I think he modelled himself on romans, which I don’t think is very progressive at all!

Eventually his reign would have been challenged and government would have evolved into something closer to a modern democracy and rights based state.

Left alone France would have no doubt evolved away from Napoleonic empire or faced another revolutio. But better to let France work that out than try and control the process into a constitution monarchy which is what they tried.

Well okay, but I don't count the second empire as the monarchy. They threw that off in 1848. Then they got saddled with a second empire as you say. But the French had moved to a republic before that, and moved back to one after Napoleon the 3rd abdicated in 1870.

@deanejay I rest my case

@john fortune well, except that the empire wasn't a monarchy. There are some important differences:

1) The monarchy draws its legitimacy from the divine right to rule of kings, backed by the church and tradition. Napoleon 3rd appealed much more to popular support and even democracy for his legitimacy, even though he was in power due to a coup d'état. For example he ran plebiscites for his biggest reforms to check whether the country wanted them, and won these. He extended suffrage to all men over 25, rather than the 0.3% under the monarchy. So paradoxically he was much more democratic than the monarchy.

2) The monarchy didn't really do government. They were essentially sat in power and used their power to keep themselves in privilege. Napoleon 3rd made significant social, and economic reforms, modernising the country, extending education and starting progressive social policies in the area of health care, and addressing social inequalities that were entrenched in laws at the time. Despite the authoritarian basis for his position, he was paradoxically much more socially progressive and egalitarian than the monarchy had been. He curtailed the control of the church over education was also much more progressive in regard to women's rights also. In many ways France boomed under his rule and he was generally pretty popular with the ordinary people.

3) The monarchy did not recognise the emperor as a monarch, and they were enemies. Louis Phillip had imprisoned him for life back in 1840.

So, I disagree. I don't really see equivalence between them, and historically speaking the French divested themselves of monarchy in 1848 when they chased Louis Phillip 1st out, established a new republic and elected a new president.

@Hans - Karl Weiß You asked for it

http://nsfarchives.altervista.org/napoleon/forum/archive2018_config.pl@md=read%3Bid=190244.html

@tomholmberg

thanks found it on my files eventually had it for a while, in case you don't mind here it is

"[t]he future Duke of Wellington, known for his humanity during the Napoleonic Wars, ordered his troops to burn entire villages and loot them completely during a campaign in Malabar in 1800." DAVID M. CROWE, WAR CRIMES, GENOCIDE, AND JUSTICE: A GLOBAL HISTORY (2014). P.65. 
‘On the other hand, when the Spanish plundering had made the peasants rise in arms, Wellington issued a proclamation requiring them either to join Soult's army or stay at home, otherwise he would burn villages and hang the inhabitants. 'Thus," says Napier, "notwithstanding the outcries against the French for this system of repressing the partida warfare in Spain, it was considered by the English general justifiable and necessary.”’ Glenn, Garrard. The Army and the Law. Columbia University Press, 1918. p.75. 
“Lindau does not write about strategy or tactics, but of things that concern the lowest ranks – staying alive and where his next meal would come from. He was a master forager and he could find something to eat in the midst of a starving army. Much of his story is about how evaded and out-witted various patrols, sergeants, officers, and local farmers in his quest to find something to eat. He was quite unapologetic about his activities and took pride in his looting farmers and cheating inn-keepers. A theme that runs through the book is that his sergeants and officers knew what he was doing and that as long as he shared his stash with his fellow soldiers and them, they turned a blind eye to his activities.” Review of “Waterloo Hero” – Napoleon Series, Bob Burnham 
“Adopting their usual military strong-arm response to such threats, the British initially sent out columns of redcoats to engage in punitive raids on villages thought to be sympathetic to Dhooniah….The redcoats, sent out to ‘restore tranquillity’ in rebellious localities, usually by wanton torching of villages and stealing of livestock, tried to instill in the inhabitants an ‘apprehension of their own safety.’ …Such was the situation encountered by Lieutenant-Colonel J. Montressor, an officer commanding the punitive expedition against the fortress and town of Arrakerry and its surrounding villages. After setting the villages alight…” Davies, Huw. Wellington’s Wars. Yale, 2012. p.25 
Wellington orders for Capt. Campbell, 27 Aug. 1799, “There is a place called Ey Goor, at the distance of about four or five coss from Munserabad, which is -the residence of the Rajah. You will be pleased to destroy it, and hang all persons either in it or Munserabad that you may find in arms.” 
Wellington, orders to the officer commanding a company at Simoga, Sept. 1799, “If he refuse to give you possession, you must attack the fort and take it by escalade, if you should deem it practicable to get at it; and having got into it, hang the killadar and all persons whom you may find there in arms.” 
Wellington to Lt.-Col. Tolfrey, 22 March 1800, “You will be joined at Ooscotta by the infantry above mentioned, to be encamped at Munserabad, and you will immediately attack the people at Ey Goor: you will burn that place, and you will hang all the people that you may find in arms, or that you may have reason to know have been so…” 
“Towards the end of the month [May 1800] Mr. Webbe secretary to the Government of Madras, wrote to Wellesley: “You are to pursue Dhundia Waugh wherever you may find him, and to hang him on the first tree. For this purpose you will receive immediate authority to enter the Mahratta frontier.” Forrest, George W. Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts. p.43. 
Wellington to Lt.-Col. Montresor, 4 May 1800, “It is very desirable that whenever you find a village deserted you should burn it, and wherever a man is in arms he should be put to death….In destroying Arrekeery it will be desirable to open the jungle as much as possible, and burn every habitation it contains.” 
Wellington to Maj. Munro, 7 Aug. 1800, “The durbash [translator] there ought to be hanged, for having made any difficulties in collecting rice to be stored.” 
Wellington to Major Palmer, 19 Aug. 1800, “I despatched orders to Mungush Rao last night to hang the commanding officer of peons, the chiefs of the tappall, and their myrmidons, guilty of delivering over to the enemy the aumildar of Soonda.” 
Wellington to Lieut. Col Bowser, 13 Sept. 1800, “Among the other measures taken to detain me was that of giving me guides who, at the end of two miles, swore they did not know the road, and would not show it, till they were threatened that they should be hanged.” 
Wellington to Col. Sartorius, 18 Sept 1800, “A hint might be given to him that I am in the habit of hanging those whom I find living under the protection of the Company and dealing treacherously towards their interests, I spare neither rank nor riches…” 
Wellington, 12 Sept. 1803, “They have some Pindars in my neighbourhood now, who have done us but little mischief themselves, but they have set the village peoples a-going and these have attacked our supplies, but a gallows or two will remedy that evil.” (Bennell, Anthony S. (ed), Maratha War Papers of Arthur Wellesley. Stroud, UK: Army Records Soc., 1998. p.276) 
Deputy Adjunct-General to Major Palmer, 24 October 1803, “…the Honourable Major-General Wellesley…may assure all such as who may behave in such a pusillanimous manner as to pay money to this army, that the General will hang them up before their own town gates.” 
Wellington to Maj. Malcolm 7 Sept. 1804, “However, as it is, the destruction of the band is complete, but I wished to hang some of their chiefs, pour encourager les autres.” 
Wellington to Marshal Beresford, 28 Jan. 1814 “You may also give the person you will send to understand, that if I have further reason to complain of these or any other villages, I will act towards them as the French did towards the towns and villages in Spain and Portugal; that is, I will totally destroy them, and hang up all the people belonging to them that I shall find. Let the rest of the people of Biddary be detained till we see what effect my letter produces.” 
“He briefly mentions the events at Scullabogue where several protestant men, women, and children were burned alive by rebels, but his horror seems directed more at the British Army and their actions at Enniscorthy where the British Army set fire to a hospital that housed ailing rebels. Wakefield describes it in these terms, “The army applied a lighted torch to the hospital at Enniscorthy, which was crowded with unresisting and wounded enemies, and consigned them to a similar fate. The destruction of these helpless wretches, by a death the most horrid that can be conceived, seemed to afford heart-felt gratification to those fiends who reveled in the blood of their fellow creatures” (366). Wakefield also expresses deep anxiety about the way in which the military took part in outright murder and the confiscation and destruction of the property of Irish peasants. He quotes from the account of a protestant bishop who was present on the spot: “The regiments that came to their assistance, being all militia, seemed to think they had a right to take the property they had been the means of preserving, and to use it as their own whenever they stood in need of it. Their rapacity differed in no respect from that of the rebels, except that they seized upon things with somewhat less ceremony or excuse, and that His Majesty’s soldiers were incomparably superior to the Irish traitors in dexterity at stealing.” Halverson, Colleen Booker. Fragmented Histories: 1798 and the Irish National Tale. (unpublished thesis.) University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 2012, p.41-42 
Lt.-Gen. Gerard Lake, commander-in-chief in Ireland during the 1798 uprising, ordered that the army take no prisoners. Maj.-Gen. David Dundas summarily executed 130 prisoners at Kilcullen. P.91 (note) After Ballinamuck almost all the Irish prisoners were executed. P.91 Knight, Roger. Britain Against Napoleon. (2013) 
Capturing a group of American soldiers who had been British subjects, some naturalized American citizens, some not-the British sent 23 to Britain as traitors. The Americans then held 23 British soldiers as hostages for the Americans. The British retaliated by holding 46 American POWs hostages, threatening to execute 2 for every British POW executed. In addition Lord Bathurst threatened “to prosecute the war with unmitigated severity against all cities, towns and villages belonging to the United States, and against all inhabitants thereof” if the hostages were harmed. (Two of the American 23 died while in British hands.) –Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812. Knopf, 2010. 

“All persons abandoning their homes after our entry into France, or absenting themselves in order to serve the usurper, shall be looked upon as his partisans and our enemies; and their property shall be confiscated and applied to the maintenance of the troops ”--Wellington. Malplaquet, June 22, 1815

@Hans - Karl Weiß Which other French army commander during the Wars of the French Revolution ended the war with Austria, defeated the Archduke Charles outside of Vienna, and negotiated a succcessful treaty?

Name one...it certainly was not Moreau.

Apparently, after serving in the Rhine armies, Desaix preferred Napoleon to Moreau as an army commander. (See The Armies of the First French Republic by Phipps, Volume II, 438-439). And Desaix voluntarily joined the Egyptian expedition and convinced Davout, also from the Rhine armies, to join him.

On Moreau: From the Biographical Sketches in the Esposito/Elting Atlas:

Moreau was well-educated and his initial service was as an enlisted man. He commanded a volunteer battalion in 1791 and was a general of brigade in 1793. He was promoted to general of division the next year. He was the commander of the Army of the Rhine from 1795-1797 but was 'stripped of his command for concealing' the 'pro-Royalist plotting of Pichegru' who was a former commander of Moreau's. He was in Italy in 1799 but did not distinguish himself. He supported 'and aided' Napoleon's coup in 1799 and commanded the Army of the Rhine from 1800-1801. He became involved in the Royalist plots against Napoleon and was banished to the United States. He was Tsar Alexander's 'military advisor' in 1813 and was killed at Dresden by French artillery fire. Apparently, he willingly turned on his own country.

Moreau was a 'violent republican'. His father was a lawyer and was guillotined during the Terror. Deep down, Moreau may have been a Royalist in sympathy. He was both modest and lazy, and except to his 'favorites' he was usually cold and inaccessible. He did take good care of the troops in his commands and was 'always loved by them.' As an army commander, he was 'cautious and slow; frequently indecisive' with 'occasional flashes of brilliance. He was also 'extremely cool and collected in crises.'

Napoleon thought him an 'excellent soldier, personally brave, capable of handling a small army on the field of battle, but an absolute stranger to strategy.'

Hohenlinden was a 'semiaccidental meeting engagement.' The French won largely by the inspired combat leadership of Ney, Richepanse, Grouchy, and Decaen, who 'converted this haphazard collision into an effective envelopment and rout of much of the Austrian army.' (See the Esposito/Elting Atlas, Map 44). After the battle after 'advancing cautiously' Moreau 'hounded' the retreating Austrians, covering almost 200 miles eastward in a little over two weeks. This victory forced the Austrians to negotiate. Moreau was lucky in his adversary, the Archduke John, but he was fortunate in his subordinates.

I find it puzzling over the apparent nostalgia for the French Revolutionary period as opposed to the Consulate and Empire.

The government spawned by the French Revolution were either bloodthirsty or inefficient and corrupt, or both, and they failed to properly support the armies they repeatedly put into the field.

My personal opinion is that the French Revolution was inevitable because of the inherent injustice of the French monarchy, but the subsequent revolutionary governments were just as bad or worse, with the exception of the social, legal, and political reforms that took place. That being said, the innate corruption of such government officials as Barras and a good portion of the Representatives on Mission (with such exceptions as Carnot) inevitably led to the Brumaire coup.

Napoleon maintained the social gains of the Revolution and gave France good government and much-needed reforms, not the least being putting France on a solid economical and monetary system as well as reforming French law and education. First and foremost he reestablished law and order, which had degenerated in France leaving the army as the only stable institution in the country.

@Hans - Karl Weiß Regarding the training of commanders, Napoleon is noted as having a talent for that one of the Saxon staff officers who served on his staff. Ferdinand von Funck noted in his memoirs that 'Napoleon had the gift of improvising rough droves of conscripts, only just put into uniform, into soldiers on the enthusiasm of the moment, and of training Commanders.'-page 101.

Clausewitz further stated, regarding Napoleon's skill in training:

'You have to have seen the steadfastness of the forces trained and led by Bonaparte...seen them under fierce and unrelenting fire-to get some sense of what can be accomplished by troops steeled by long experience in danger, in whom a proud record of victories has instilled the noble principle of placing the highest demands on themselves. As an idea alone it is unbelievable..'-Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 170.

In point of fact, Napoleon trained his imperial ADCs in his own art of war and definitely trained Eugene when the latter had to assume command of the Army of Italy in 1809.

Yes, I do think it is relevant who is writing history, what their background is and what values or ideas are influencing them. So far I have found American commentators on Napoleon refreshingly more neutral and balanced, but I admit that its not a very scientific finding. Maybe in 2 years I will have changed this view, but so far they seem that way...?

@deanejay

Try out some French historians - but as usual there are always good and bad ones, regardless what nation, I won't cite some American historians who are quite critical of the destroyer of France.

@Kevin F. Kiley

scourge of repetion, Trobriand was demolished by Robert Ouvrad on the old forum and in case just recently at TMP

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=548049

also

1. the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.


2. ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause.


3. a public action having such an effect.

@Hans - Karl Weiß The question is: did de Trobriand deliver the order to Bernadotte or not?

@Zack White I have no idea of your background, experience, occupation, etc. and all of that has little or no bearing on what you have posted and what your level of expertise is, except as a reflection of what you may or may not have taught your students. Knowledge of the latter is unknown to me as I was never in your class.

I taught history (as well as mathematics, science, and English) for twenty years and continue to study military history for which I went back to school for an advanced degree. I no longer teach as I'm fully retired but I do write from time to time.

@deanejay

It is far much complex of course, Paris cannot be confused with France, there were quite a few parts, Vendée amongst others which resented the Republic and the foreign countries interfered, not in 1789 but 3 years later, even when there wasn't even a Republic established.

It took the "Republicans" terror - killing masses of their own citizens to weed out the anti Republican movement, in 1792 and 1793 the Republic was burning all over the place and it took huge efforts by the committee of public welfare to keep the Republic alive and finally a man like Carnot to forge the victorious armies of the French Republic.

@deanejay ""

A) "To argue that they were the legitimate rulers is to take a very royalist perspective." Precisely. The perspective of all the victorious monarchies of Europe.

B) "Taking partisan sides in someone else's civil war" Britain was taking military action against the current government of a nation that had just declared war on them for the second time in sixteen years. (On which occasion France had taken sides in "someone else's civil war"). War. Britain and France had been engaged in prolonged international rivalry since the reign of that blushing flower Louis XIV. France had built an international empire as well but was losing on points to Britain.

Of Possible Interest:

Plunder on the Peninsula: British Soldiers and Local Civilians During the Peninsular War, 1808–1813

Gavin Daly

This chapter examines the nature of plunder by the British army in the Peninsular War, and shows that new forms of plunder developed as a result of both cultural perceptions and the specific experience of the Peninsular War. Aside from the British, the French, Spanish, and Portuguese armies also plundered the local inhabitants. They confiscated public merchandise and estates, requisitioned harvests, seized church property and valuables, and levied crippling war contributions on the provinces. French troops committed atrocities against civilians and looted towns and villages, churches and monasteries after razing them to the ground. British soldiers carried out plunder due to necessity, opportunism, and collecting. Yet British plunder was also restrained and facilitated by military, legal, customary, cultural, and environmental factors that converged during the Peninsular War to transform some British soldiers into banditti in red coats.

In: Civilians and War in Europe, 1618–1815. Erica Charters, Eve Rosenhaft, and Hannah Smith

Liverpool Univ. 2012 ISBN-13: 9781846317118

@Hans - Karl Weiß I think we can make a case for three aspects to a person: the background effects, our own decisions and the unintended consequences of our own decisions. Napoleon’s apologists will not only seek to say that Napoleon was “forced” into things, but also try to evade responsibility for the consequences and that raises key questions about responsibility (and therefore the person concerned). For example, was Napoleon responsible for the Second of May? He didn’t order the violent crackdown, but it was his decision to take over Spain that led to those events depicted by Goya. But then, it is possible to argue that financial issues pushed Napoleon into taking over, but again those financial issues were caused by his decision to maintain a very large standing army.

I notice a central contradiction reared it’s head in the latest podcast between Zack and Will Fletcher: N is supposed to be micromanaging the Marshals in Spain (and the same applies to Eugene in Italy). Yet, mysteriously, just as he is supposed to have looked after the spending of the last franc, Napoleon was supposedly prepared to let Marshals under his direct command do whatever they liked in the activity that was central to his regime’s existence.

That makes no sense to me when we are trying to assess a person as we usually operate in similar ways.

@david.a.hollins

I notice a central contradiction reared it’s head in the latest podcast  between Zack and Will Fletcher: N is supposed to be micromanaging the  Marshals in Spain (and the same applies to Eugene in Italy). Yet,  mysteriously, just as he is supposed to have looked after the spending  of the last franc, Napoleon was supposedly prepared to let Marshals  under his direct command do whatever they liked in the activity that was  central to his regime’s existence. 

This would be a good start for a discussion in the appropriate thread about Nabulieone's way of war, but mysteriously it cannot be initiated as for other podcasts.

A Marshal couldn't do whatever he liked - on the other hand you cannot micromanage all corps in your army as well, but Ian Fletcher pointed it already out the Nabulieone style of command was very I command you obey - without questioning the command - style.

@david.a.hollins You were doing fine with "No, he wasn’t."

Well its not like we haven't been through these kinds of discussions often enough for people to know that they won't get away with slinging insults around... 🤔 oh wait...😂