"What if ... Napoleon had NOT invaded Russia?" Topic

For some reason this question shook loose an old memory from my undergraduate days when I took a course in Ancient Hitory. The professor, once gave us an assignment to compose as one of the advisers to Xerxes, a speech for inclusion in Heroditus as to why Xerxes should NOT invade Greece." It had to be in the style and using metaphors contemporary to Heroditus. Some of them were quite good, masterful in fact, but in the discussion we all realized that none of them would have had the slightest influence on Xerxes. I recall it being one of the best classes ever as the professor was teching us not only ancient history but of the writing and rules of writing history.

I suspect the same would have been true of Napoleon.

But for me, it had another and more sobering effect. I realized the misery and suffering unleashed by these decisions, and how so often the glittering and the great, the triumphs and superlatives are bought with tears and blood and sadness, much destruction of peoples property and much crushing of peoples lives.

@Ottoathome,

Any man can do both good and evil. The greater the man, the more of either he can do.