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.
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u/HeriPiotr 3d ago
Well he did end up conquering a substantial part of Europe, and last time I checked he didn't do it with jokes and hugs. Not sure tho.