"Who were the good guys?" Topic

Probably a meaningless question, and certainly there were problems with both sides, but…

I come down on the side of Napoleon, if only slightly. Yes, I think he was a bloody-handed conqueror, and even his strongest champions have real problems arguing otherwise. He was also a shameless self-aggrandizer.

But, I think that what makes Napoleonic France the good guys is not Napoleon, but France. In the end, even if the Empire was not a democracy, it was certainly a meritocracy. The adage, coined by Nappy, IIUC, that every French soldier carried a Marshal's baton in his knapsack was the unvarnished truth. Most of them rose from the ranks, and none of them were really bad soldiers. This same trend existed in the civil government, as well.

This was a far cry from the other European nations of the period, where nepotism and corruption were the norm. No, Napoleonic France was not perfect, but it was the best of a bad lot.

In the last analysis, where the French went, they brought the ideals of the French Revolution with them. Liberty, equality, fraternity were often not taken seriously, but they were more than just words, and they changed people even when they were spoken by hypocrites.

Not looking for a flame war on this, just your opinion.

Nahh. I think when you look at a jumped up little sociopathic meglomaniac who "Cares not for the lives of a million men" but was responsible for 15 million deaths and untold suffering. The leader who replaced free butchery and executions on every street corner of anyone vaguely suspected of being a dissenter, with a rule of endless invasion and looting, turning a whole civilised country into thdrunken theif and murderer of the world.

You have to say, France under the arrogant dwarf or the crazed mob rousers, was the bad guy of the age.

Inquisitor Thaken wrote: "I come down on the side of Napoleon"

Mmmmmmmm… no.

I can see how you might say that, but no. I agree with Tommiatkins. The side that marches into your country, kills thousands, and then presses many of those left into the military can hardly be called the good guys.

I have a great admiration for Napoleon as a general. I think he was the world's greatest. But, in the end, he was still a tyrant.

It normally depends upon where you were born, or which side your history/sociology professor prefers.

Napoleon is the Good Guy, because of France????
Pull the other one.

Hmm. I'd have to side with Thaken. At least in France there was a semblance of democracy. Given a choice between serving in the French, British, Russian, Austrian or Prussian armies, which would you choose? Who's up for running the gauntlet?

By the by, i'm guessing that this will turn into a huge flame war, with most of Her Maj's subjects coming up with the 'Napoleon=Hitler' line and then the pro Boney mob equating him with the Messiah.
I think it would be best to close this thread now and save everyone the pain.
:)

Must run out to get popcorn…….

Wait 'til I get back.

This is the same meritocracy that promoted N's brothers to the crown in Holland, Naples and Spain (the latter two supplanting the incumbent) and his sister/brother in law in Naples? I cant believe how many of N's apologists, in trying to promote his positive influence, overlook this issue. David Markham/Cameron Reilly on the Napoleon podcast being prime examples.

FWIW, I think all sides were trying to achieve their own ends. Good/bad is very difficult to rationalise. If I had to make a call, at the very end of the wars, what borders did France retain? Did not other the countries merely force France to return to its own borders rather than occupying France as France did in Germany and Spain?

John

"Who were the good guys?"

We were, of course.

The good guys always wear red just so everyone knows and doesn't need to ask.

Napoleon returned free men and women to slavery because it was politically expedient.

I thought it was white. Baddies in black. So there we have it, Austria were the goodies, Brunswick the baddies.

America was around then right? Pretty sure we were the good guys. Bet we had to save Europe… again!

America was around then right? Pretty sure we were the good guys. Bet we had to save Europe… again!

Nope. Invading Canada, waging war on the First Nations and buying Louisiana from Napoleon doesn't compute with being good guys or saving Europe.

Symbiotic Relationship "The good guys always wear red just so everyone knows and doesn't need to ask."

The U.S.S. Enterprise security guards?

Why the United States, don'tcha know?

They still are the good guys!!!!

Of course that can depend on your holdings in the stock market sometimes.

mjc

If you look at the wars within the Napoleonic Wars you will find that France and Napoleon started fewer than half. The Coalitions sought to beat first Republican then Imperial France down. France's actions were retaliatory and consistent with centuries of "we won, therefore we get something for our trouble."

If you want to place some measure of moral blame, put it squarely on England who sat behind her wooden walls and used English gold to buy the lives of men on the Continent. Had there not been promises of gold to sway monarchs who rule by an accident of birth, do you really think that those nations beaten time and again would have kept coming back for more?

Napoleon had a superb tool for a time in la Grande Armee and a good system, so he sought to make France stronger with it. While reprehensible by 21st century standards (maybe, given recent history), it is consistent with history. Have we already forgotten European colonialism in the decades that followed Napoleon?

Why the British of course, for no other reason than I speak English and so did they. And because they were not French, which is another good reason.

I believe it was the French 5th regiment of Hussars. I'll need to check my sources.

If you fall squarely on the side of "Napoleon was a monster", then I think you're not being objective. There is give and take on both sides. I believe that even if you think he/France was the bad guy, it should be mariginal and fall at least part in a gray area.

Personally I fall on the side of Napoleon, simply because he brought modern ideas to the world (look at prussia / Germany in 1813-14).

Had he been left to forge a larger Europe, there is a possibility that the great disasters we suffered during the 20th century (WW1/2 to name the biggest) might never have occured. Of course much worse things could also have occured.. we don't know.. but it's interesting….

TW

Symbiotic Relationship "The good guys always wear red just so everyone knows and doesn't need to ask."

Inquisitor Thaken "The U.S.S. Enterprise security guards?"

Don't be silly. He meant the British.

tinyurl.com/dydlyl

Neither. Good guys only exist in Hollywood, this is European politics. Napoleon did what any other leader of the era tried to do; conquer territories, make your country better and more powerful than the other. It's just that he was better at it than most of his predecessors or adversaries. Anyone who tells me the British, Austrians or any other nations tried to stop Napoleon for the greater good is seriously deluding himself. France started some of the wars, the coalition did the same. It's not as if France was the only agressor!

I have a soft spot for France because I agree with the ideals of the Revolution (but not the practice) and I think this was a turning point in modern politics and democracy, but in the end I don't think France was any better or worse than any of it's opponents.

It has to be the French because the British came over here (the U.S.) and burnt our capitol to the ground. Ol' Zach got them back, tho.

The British burned down our capital in retaliation for our burning down theirs in Canada.

"The British burned down our capital in retaliation for our burning down theirs in Canada."

Yeah, but they needed a new one.

Hmmmm… burning down the baddies` capitals…
that`s just a little part of our "special relationship"!

YouTube link

It's all a question of perspective……

Thank-you Cerdic !

So I should take the 'Actual size' label off my 28mm Napoleon figure?

God bless Mitchell and Webb. That was wonderful, Cerdic.

My vote – the Irish.

Ultimately Napoleon was true to national form and not once but twice was a cheese-eating surrender monkey…

"I have a soft spot for France because I agree with the ideals of the Revolution (but not the practice) and I think this was a turning point in modern politics and democracy, but in the end I don't think France was any better or worse than any of it's opponents."

Whilst the revolution may have led to development of effective democracy, it also led to state centered nationalism and the century and a half of bloody horror which ensued thereof.

"At least in France there was a semblance of democracy."

So that makes invading other peoples countries and killing millions of them OK then? Oh dear, Blue Fez here we come…

I blame Hitler. If it hadn't been for the death camps, we wouldn't be able to paint WWII as being a clear case of a war of good vs evil. Up until the late war discovery of the atrocities of the Holocaust, WWII was just another political conflict with all sides being in the wrong. Subsequently, because we had a major war of good vs. evil, people that don't study history can imagine that all wars are as black and white and that there is such a thing as a 'good guy' in a war. Also, because WWII became a moral war, the victors have political capital that they can exploit every day with propoganda, legitimizing all sorts of atrocious activities with the excuse that they were the good guys. When we begin to see politics as moral choices rather than economic and security choices, we lose perspective. When our leaders want to paint a random enemy as being worthy of invasion, they call them 'like Hitler' and suddenly all objectivity is cast aside and it becomes a crusade.

Its all Hitler's fault.

From a wider perspective Napoleon was just another absolutist monarch involved in the struggle for supremacy in Europe. He was however a significant speed-bump on the road to France attaining a modern democracy. The US and UK had a very different agenda, the control of trade. Was one objective more of less noble than the other? Depends on your perspective I suppose.

The good guys ? Perhaps some obscure tribe in the
Australian Outback, or the Congo, or Afghanistan
or – well, y'all get the point, eh ?

"Who were the good guys?"

I suppose the Poles, right ? A little hopeless, but essentially rather good.

Frayer

The winners. The Good guys a;ways win. The losers are for ever the baddies.

IF France/Napoleon HAD won, no doubt they would be, but they lost. So they are condemned to the Bad Guy bin.

While technically france was not the agressor in many of the coalitions I dont think this is fair.

Fact is the both revolutionary and imperial france were aggressive to europe.

Even in 1815 I doubt napoleon wanted long term peace. He would have attacked someone eventually Im sure.

I for one do not beleive that having a more democratic government gives anyone the right to regime change another country…..

To be fair, and I have no real irons in this fire, while Napoleon was a gunner who achieved power in a coup d'etat, he did give France its first reasonably government since – oh, the Roman Empire – and, as noted, the Brits did pour lots of gold onto the Continent to fund Coalition after Coalition

As noted by Condottiere, Napoleon was of average height – he just had a lot of pictures of himself painted standing beside Grenadiers in bearskins

Finally, yes, the Brits did burn down Washington, but it did provide a great reason to paint the White House white

Obviously it was the irish, cornwell says so.

"Napoleon was of average height"

This is one of those Time Bandits moments.

How tall was Alexander the Great again?

Napoleon doesn't look this tall here :

picture

picture

Napoleon's rise to power did put an end to the Grand Guignol the revolution had devolved into. He turned out to be a very decent administrator if it wasn't for the huge military apparatus France had evolved into. This was only too tempting to use, especially when Napoleon figured that he was much better than most of the people he faced in battle.

The major difference and the real thing that shocked so many powers in Europe was the fact that Napoleon didn't bother with legalities, unlike most royals who usually had some claim to a territory or another. In the case of Napoleon it was conquest pure and simple. Very "not done" in the 19th century !

Even if you ignore the propaganda, Napoleon was really perceived as a monster in the eyes of many Europeans. Had he been a great marshal under a lawful monarch he would have been lauded far and wide, even by his enemies, but he was just a commoner who crowned himself emperor …

In the end, even if the Empire was not a democracy, it was certainly a meritocracy. The adage, coined by Nappy, IIUC, that every French soldier carried a Marshal's baton in his knapsack was the unvarnished truth.

The fact that the revolution changed very little is surely the ease with which Napoleon's cronies switched from supporting him to the Bourbons, back to N and so on! It was no more a meritocracy than anywhere else. After all A Wellesley Esq rose from obscurity to a Dukedom and eventually prime minister.

Most of them rose from the ranks, and none of them were really bad soldiers. This same trend existed in the civil government, as well.

That's debatable at best. Some of them were pretty poor.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies of course.

As a general rule, if you ever find yourself in a war against a lot of people, whom most of the world refers to as "The Allies," then it's a distinct possibility that You might be the Baddie.

werent the allies the baddies in WWI ?

Somebody's been reading Niall Fergusson!

werent the allies the baddies in WWI ?

Yep, until revisionism came in and replaced "Allies" with "Central Powers" and "Entente" with "Allies".

"Napoleon doesn't look this tall here"

I believe you will find those were both painted in the 1830's by a man who was not present at either event.

As you can see by these examples, such pictures constitute no kind of evidence.

picture

picture

picture

Here is the gist of the debate:

link

But even if he were 5'2" rather than 5'7" this would only make him three inches shorter than the average Frenchman of his time. Would you characterize a man 5'8" today as particularly short?

There were plenty of proficient French rulers, like Louis XIV. Had France had someone of his caliber or that of Henri IV in 1789, the revolution wouldn't have overthrown the monarchy. Had Louis XVI not ignored the army, he'd have probably held onto his throne.

Condottiere (my favourite period in Italian history, by the by) I certainly agree that there were proficient French rulers – the Spider King (Louis XI), for example, in addition to the examples cited – I am thinking of how the French government worked at the level of the average person – while this could be argued, Napoleon's government at the local level was, as I recall, pretty good – I agree problems crept in later, when the Empire needed more and more conscripts