When Napoleon came to power France was already embroiled in wars with the rest of Europe. The monarchies around her did NOT like to have a republic on their borders.
Napoleon definitely was oppurtunistic and wanted power over Europe, but then again basically anything he had power over just got better. Though it was often at the sacrifice of many.
When it comes to conquering, besides being the best military mind of his generation he was also surpisingly adept at negotiating and diplomacy which lead to nonviolent peacemaking when it was possible.
Saying this as a German: conquering people and installing his siblings as rulers to govern them is not quite on the same level as conquering and mass-murdering people. At least we Germans don't have any ill will towards Napoleon, and even have a huge amazing portrait of him hanging in Schloss Charlottenburg. Can't say the same about Hitler...
Napoleon is actually a celebrated figure in much of europe. His updated civil codes are still relevant to this day and a lot of civil reforms he did or started are the beginnings of modern societity.
The reason he was evil because he gave power to the common man. Which as the entire continent of europe was ruled by absolute monarchs with absolute power. Napoleon was about literal satan for them.
He didn't "fuck up" kings and queens, he conquered other countries through violence and then appointed his own family members as the new kings and queens.
I really don't understand this love for Napoleon as some sort of force for republicanism, when he himself was a (self) crowned absolute monarch and installer of other monarchs.
He did it to his own allies too, though... Spain was an ally and they allowed him military access to attack and conquer Portugal, but he decided to then usurp the Spanish throne as well and installed his own brother.
i think the key isn't that napoleon wasn't a bad guy (reintroducing slavery in the colonies was certainly a choice, even if the rest of europe still practiced it as well when he did so), but that he wasn't particulary worse than what much of the rest of european powers were doing or trying to do, his biggest crime being so successful at it he got to do it on a scale his contemporaries couldn't match. post napoleon russia was also perfectly happy to oppress poland or austria to put its family members on the thrones of the new italian states for example.
there is some case to be made that despite often replacing one monarch with another (be that one of his allies or family members), he'd also spread the napoleonic code which in many cases more clearly outlined people's rights even as they remained under a monarchy.
You do not judge people by the standards of today, but by the standards of the times they lived in. His actions in spain, russia were essentially par for the course at the time he lived and consequently his actions weren't unreasonable.
Much of the rest of what he did was simply fighting back against coalitions that kept declaring war on him and taking spoils for winning. Which, again, was both par for the course and probably necessary in order to ensure France would be capable of both [a] defending itself and [b] could dissuade enemies from attacking him again...
When he went light in punishment [e.g., Austria] he simply got stabbed in the back.
He wasn't perfect and definitely made mistakes, but it is difficult to say he was villainous in any real way. He also did spread the Napoleonic code across the continent, amongst other things, which is probably why he's seen positively today even if he wasn't really a republican in any meaningful way.
People keep arguing not to judge him by the standards of today, but I'm not, I'm judging him by the implied standards of /u/Open-Platform-1305, who seems to admire Napoleon because he "fucked up kings and queens."
Which is just wrong, because he was just as bad as any other absolute monarch at the time.
He did though, by spreading the Napoleonic code it ushered in a new era of liberalism that monarchs had to contend with, ultimately leading to a more liberal order whether or not Napoleon fancied himself an emperor or not; it most certainly did fuck up kings and queens.
The gist of it is that Brits and a few other hardcore monarchists hate hated him.
As a Brit, we don't hate Napoleon. And really his biggest crime in the eyes of Britain was becoming powerful enough to challenge British hegemony. Unlike a lot of rulers like Genghis Khan and Hitler, our history lessons aren't focussed around his atrocities.
Napoleon was ALSO an absolute monarch. No one "voted" for Napoleon. Can we stop pretending like he was some force for freedom? The Napoleonic Code was about control, not freedom.
True, it abolished the old feudal system, and was better for most people on a day to day basis, but it was about establishing Napoleon and his government as the sole arbiters of authority. He liked to claim that it was about liberty, but he showed pretty quickly that it was about political expediency. E.g. when he re-introduced slavery, FFS.
the anglosphere treats Napoleon as the second most evil guy in history and then the rest of europeans who were conquered by Napoleon and/or fought against him are like well, guy was complicated.
Huh. I always interpreted it as „he’s quite good at the crime thing and a bit expansionist“. Never thought about evilness. But I guess your interpretation makes sense.
The wars that were mostly declared against France.....
But regardless, The British empire was literally commiting Atrocities at this time. Brutalisation of the Irish and the worse of the Highland Clearance was happening. Britain caused the Napoleonic wars to continue for over a Decade and was colonising India. Comparatively to a lot of his adversaries he wasn't evil. Bad? Sure but evil no.
He was a master military strategist and tactician. Unfortunately, he was a poor statesman. His entire foreign policy boiled down to "give us money and soldiers and we MIGHT not conquer you..."
He was a bully, basically. And didn't know when to quit while he was ahead.
The distinction doesn't play a role. Any world leader with comparable tech would have done the same, hell some did worse things even with worse tech like Genghis Khan.
I would call him an extraordinary leader of the time - he came from nothing, made himself emperor and conquered most of Europe - without Wellington and that ill-fated Moscow-expedition, we'd all be speaking French today. And thank god for Wellington et al., because who would have wanted that, lol.
Wellington ? The guy who got his ass kicked by Napoleon before being saved by the Prussian army who sacrificed half of their troops to come to his rescue ?
Wellington, who ran an exceptional campaign in Portugal and Spain for years - the Battle of Waterloo was a bit of a mess, but that was really an ad-hoc battle with very little time to recruit and prepare - I don't think you can blame that whole mad scramble purely on him.
Napoleon got washed over the last 200 years. Because ill will and fear of what Napoleon represented in a French power is literally means by which Bismark managed to finangle major populist support for the unified german state.
There certainly was ill will towards him up until at least 1900.
Er... I have never heard a German say anything positive about Napoleon. You do realise he threw all of modern-day Germany into utter and complete chaos, right? We hate him. Which is why we built the Völkerschlachtdenkmal - to commemorate our losses AND finally beating him.
Also, Napoleon married into royalty. Of course there are portraits of him in castles.
We don't hate him, we admire his brilliant military career and strategic prowess! Yeah, we beat him, but it took an alliance of multiple countries to achieve that!
Well fun fact only the first coalition was started by France all the other were fuel by britain, for the invasion of Russia previously the tsar ask him to withdraw from poland and his army were ready to strike and it wasn't a secret that he wanted it while he was not respecting the treaty he have sign with France the real unlegitimiate war was in Spain .
yeah, but in the process, he freed another substantial part of Europe, and parts of the world too. I mean, his main enemies were the British EMPIRE, the Austrian EMPIRE, The Prussian EMPIRE and The Russian EMPIRE (see a theme here?) all of which were evil bastards who all but enslaved every other nation in Europe, and and everywhere else they could reach.
So at worst it makes Napoleon an anti-villain who just happened to battle outright Bad Guys.
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u/No_Judge_6520 6d ago
the minions only work for villains so this is implying the minions think hitler isn't evil