"What did Napoleon do for Europe?..." Topic

… More than you'd want to accept

"…At first sight, Napoleon's heritage has been but twofold: first, he popularised the wearing of one's hat the wrong way on. His placing of the bicorn across his head rather than fore-and-aft was the direct forerunner of the wearing of baseball caps back-to-front, also adopted by unspeakably annoying people.

Second, he made it acceptable for the shorter man to become a national leader. Both Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi have the emperor to thank…"
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Amicalement
Armand

The aqueduct?

Brandy? Pastries?

Lots of armies to paint

code Napoleon

cognac

+1 to mildbill

Found the Rosetta Stone.

He made Oliver Cromwell less embarrassing to the British--who are sort of European, sometimes.

Ok – besides sanitation, public order, the roads, the aqueduct, medicine and education, what did Napoleon ever do for Europe!

He set in motion the modern concept of Nationalism which in turn helped to get rid of monarchies. Of course you have to hold the viewpoint of a democrat to think this is a good thing.

MiniPigs, the question was what he did FOR Europe, not TO Europe. Have you got any notion what the body count of nationalism has been so far? Nor is nationalism incompatible with monarchy--unless you're the Holy Roman Emperor or equivalent.

As for the Code Napoleon, the re-ordering of the Corpus Juris Civilis was already under way while he was still looting art in Italy. You could as justly say he deprived us of the Code Moreau.

Another wargamer worried about the long dead? Napoleon is no more responsible for the dead of his era than any of his adversaries. Takes two to fight.

We're talking about two different concepts here which sometimes share the same words.

I'm referring to democratic/liberal/civic nationalism which is incompatible with Monarchy.

I believe you refer to national socialism, ethnic nationalism or fascism which is a form of right wing populism which not only is it highly compatible with monarchy but tends to support its inception.

Napoleon associated with democratic, liberal or civic values? Really??

Napoleon is certainly associated with Nationalism- but of the militaristic, glory seeking and triumphalist kind. That kind of nationalism created an absolutely colossal body count from numerous wars long before the any the later fascistic or ethnic/racist dimensions emerged.

If this kind of totally anti-democratic nationalism is associated with monarchy- then one of the chief exponents of it is certainly the absolute leader of a militarist autocracy in the early c19th, who also granted himself the title 'Emperor' and set about trying to establish a hereditary ruling dynasty. I think we all know who we're talking about.

None of that is to suggest that there were no other anti-democratic, illiberal, belligerent autocrats in Europe at the time- of course there were- but Napoleon's behaviour is simply a parvenu (and for a time much more successful) version of them.

I think though that one of the things Napoleon did for the whole of Europe was to force a radical improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of government bureaucracy needed to recruit and equip all of the those big armies to fight all of those big wars. Eventually this better organisation also percolated into other branches of government, which was a perhaps a good thing.

In the same way that drama is only an art form because Shakespeare was a dramatist, Corsica is only a place because Napoleon was Corsican.

"He set in motion the modern concept of Nationalism which in turn helped to get rid of monarchies."

but not in France – at least not until his nephew's Imperial fiasco sixty years later(which did rather well (briefly) for German monarchy and nationalism, and subsequently fascism)-

And not the monarchies of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain- did I miss anyone out? (Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Monaco- The Vatican?) That's just western Europe of course. Do Morocco, Jordan, Saudi, various Gulf states count?

"I'm referring to democratic/liberal/civic nationalism which is incompatible with Monarchy

Russia?
Turkey?
(-spare a thought, however, for the post-Ottoman kings of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Persia, Yemen.)

Ethiopia..? poor old Haile Selassie

Corsica is only a place because Napoleon was Corsican.

And Wellington is only written about because he faced Napoleon?

History is filled with people (and places) who only achieve renown because of whom they're associated with something greater.

Actually, Napoleon caused nationalism in those countries fighting against him, particularly Prussia.

Indeed it takes two to fight, MiniPigs--but one to make a massacre. Nationalism is tragically massacre-prone, and I don't think you escape by saying "oh, well, I don't count those." There is indeed democracy and dictatorship, fascist and otherwise, but they're sideways to nationalism, not a "good" and "bad" form of the same. (Can you say "socialism in one country?" I thought you could.)

And not all the bodies are long dead. In the Balkans and points east, you can find fresh ones. Wait a bit and there will be more.

Wait a bit and there will be more.

That statement put me off my morning coffee. :(

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

What, Stoppage, you thought history had come to an end? We've been doing the same things in politics for more than 2,000 years. The types of disasters associated with each shouldn't surprise anyone by now.

Though the modern practice of transforming sites of some massacres into tourist destinations, their openings sometimes attended by "celebrities" and royalty once the bodies have been cleared away from a beach, say, shows that some humans do indeed use their little portion of intellect to perfect their vice and depravity.

Oh, by the way; a concern with what might today be termed "national identity" was long established before Carlo Buonaparte was even born, let alone his son Napoleone. As with some other concepts and concerns, this one was called on and exploited in different ways during the Revolutionary period and after, with greater or lesser contemporary success and later influence. With regard to the original posting, and agreeing with others' contributions re. improvements, I'd just add that Napoleon on one occasion gave a lot of rabbits to some surprised and fortunate peasants.

Apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health?

No, wait, that was the Romans. Or Monty Python?

The Monty Python line is always a good one, but the proper comparison, whether it's the Romans, Napoleon, or anyone else, is whether what they brought was worse or better than what might otherwise have eventuated anyway.

Rome snuffed out about half a dozen nascent local civilisations, any of which might have risen in Rome's stead: Samnium, the Sabines, Greece, Egypt, Parthia, Carthage, the Celts, and so on. Before we rush to applaud Rome, we should consider whether any of the others would done the same good things Rome did, but fewer of the bad things. It's not easy because usually all we know of them is what the Romans said of them. The Romans liked to depict conquered territories as populated by savages living in mud huts, but they would, wouldn't they? It is a completely inaccurate description of any of the above. To be fair, something the Romans brought was religious tolerance. They were intensely relaxed about who the locals worshipped as long as they paid their taxes. But of the rest of the list of good Roman stuff, how much would not have happened if Carthage had won? I think it would all have happened just the same.

So what would there have been if there'd been no Napoleon and hence no Code Napoleon? Well, there'd have been exactly the same thing only with a different name, as observed upthread. Most revolutions replace one tyranny with another, or they replace a democracy with a tyranny. There are very, very few exceptions. But what if France had been one such, and what if instead of Napoleon she had had a Washington or a Garibaldi? The hats wouldn't have been as huge, but neither probably would have been the death toll.

So what would there have been if there'd been no Napoleon and hence no Code Napoleon? Well, there'd have been exactly the same thing only with a different name, as observed upthread. Most revolutions replace one tyranny with another, or they replace a democracy with a tyranny. There are very, very few exceptions. But what if France had been one such, and what if instead of Napoleon she had had a Washington or a Garibaldi? The hats wouldn't have been as huge, but neither probably would have been the death toll.

I suppose George III wasn't a tyrant? This common theme among a select few lamenting the casualties of the Napoleonic Wars (with its insinuation that Napoleon is responsible for them) comes across as both misplaced and insincere.

L'Arc de Triomphe…

Amicalement
Armand

"Napoleon is no more responsible for the dead of his era than any of his adversaries. Takes two to fight."
In the week we mark the Holocaust, our American contributors might be somewhat surprised to be informed of their culpability?

I don't think George III personally wielded any actual power. The British government did, and inasmuch as Americans couldn't vote it out, it was a tyranny. That said, it was a tyranny over most Britons as well, because most couldn't vote. Some at least could. The style of government where you have elections that change nothing because the parliament you elect to has no opposition and the ruling body is appointed not elected, remains in vogue in, for example, the EU to this day, but it's not what was in place in Britain.

If George III's rule was a tyranny then so was Napoleon's, only more so, because Britain had elections in which the some of the people could vote for the government to change, whereas Napoleonic France did not.

Franco's tyranny arose because the Spanish fascists overturned an election the communists had won, so that is another example, along with Hitler and Mussolini, of a tyranny replacing a democracy.

George III- a tyrant??

I think some early modern constitutional history boot camp is seriously needed here. George III's whole motif is that he presided over, in fact pressed for, even further transfer of actual governing power to the cabinet and parliament and away from the monarchy.

Ok – besides sanitation, public order, the roads, the aqueduct, medicine and education, what did Napoleon ever do for Europe!

Now that's funny. Monty Python Life of Brian, on what did the Roman's every do for us.

Any notion of regal tyranny ended with the Stuarts, Charles and James, the second and seventh of that name being disposed of when they presumed too far.

The Hanoverian dispensation was that of a Whig parliamentary democracy and the kings of that line constitutional monarchs. There was Royal prerogative and great deference still, particularly to the person of George III, who was revered, in some quarters at least, and subsequently pitied in his mental affliction but while the King ruled, his ministers governed; in his name, certainly, but not at his whim.

The Declaration of Independence asserts George III was a tyrant and lists a laundry list of his crimes. He does seem to have wanted to punish the colonists a great deal.

It's more accurate to term George I a tyrant than the Stuarts mentioned above; they were (and their modern-day relatives remain) legitimate monarchs, not dull-witted foreign usurpers. George II and George III, and all the rest of their parasitic descendants, were likewise illegitimate wearers of crowns and occupiers of thrones. By the way, recalling another thread about "fake news" and "fake history", what some have termed "the Glorious Revolution" was nothing other than a Coup d'Etat to replace a legitimate, if Roman Catholic, sovereign with a Dutch opportunist, ensuring the continuation of anti-Catholic policy characteristic of the British State from that to this. One would expect tolerance, pluralism, if not "multi-culturalism" at that time, to be approved today, and the reputation of James VII to be enhanced accordingly, but then, Roman Catholics – or anyone married to a Roman Catholic – still cannot settle their regal airss on the British throne. I wonder would such an explicit piece of bigotry be tolerated today were the "strategy of exclusion" directed at any other defined group of people, but then, maybe some are more civilised than others.

Since, due to Henry VIII's break with Rome and proclaiming himself Head of the Church of England, the ruler of Great Britain in also constitutionally the Head of a Protestant Church, it is hardly surprising – or unreasonable – that someone not of that religion (or willing to convert) cannot become king or queen.

Can a Jew, Hindu or Muslim apply to be the next Pope? Or a Roman Catholic become Chief Rabbi?

I would say there is a distinction to be made between arbitrary rule and questions of legitimacy.

Whatever questions you might want to raise over the ousting of James II/VII, in favour of his daughter and her husband, the rule of the house of Stuart continued in Mary Sturt's joint reign with her husband and that of her sister Anne. On Anne's death, in the absence of a direct heir, the throne passed to the nearest Protestant heir, George Lewis of Hanover, a descendant of Charles I.

You may question the legitimacy of that choice, given the existence of James Stuart, Anne's brother, but once the line of succession had been adjusted following James II's abdication, the ascent of George I to the throne of UKGB can hardly be considered usurpation, nor, I would suggest, could the rule of that monarch or his heirs be described as arbitrary.

"Constitutional monarch" in a country without any Constitution, a Tudor dynasty itself illegitimate by the concepts of the time, a"king" who simply set himself up as the head of a Church which to any Protestant sect of the time was nothing more than Papist without the Pope…

If the House of Stuart continued – or continues(!)- to reign, funny how the name went from "Hanover" to "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" and then "Windsor" once the Germanic identity became embarrassing during the Great War. The last legitimate Stuart in direct line of succession was Henry IX (Cardinal Henry Stuart, Duke of York, younger brother of Charles III, better known as "Bonnie Prince Cherlie"). If Britain – or what's left of it in a few years' time – retains the archaic absurdity of a hereditary monarch by the time the eldest of Philip and Elizabeth's three children gets to wear the Crown and juggle the baubles, it will see a repetition of the insult to Scotland inherent in their current Queen daring to style herself "Elizabeth II" even though only England has had an Elizabeth on the throne; that is, the clown Charles Windsor would not be called "Charles IV", and his eldest, if the juggle goes on, would claim to be "William V". Though Prince Charles has been making

@Robert le Diable- I can't work out. Is your issue with monarchy itself or unethical behaviour within the House of Stuart? Are you really that bothered – (can you actually be a Jacobite)?

And really, it's not as if 'direct line of succession' has ever meant a hoot when push came to shove, bearing in mind that the tribe of Norman-Franco-Welsh-Scots-German cousins that has held sway over these isles for a thousand years came to power at the point of a lance (as did the Lancastrians, Yorkists, Tudors- not to mention Bruce and the Stuart spawn) – and even William the Bastard and Edward the Confessor were cousins in an Anglo-Danish mash-up.

So, who's on first?'

some noises about being "Defender of faith(s)" (the title "Defender of the Faith", ironically enough, having been awarded to Henry VIII by the Pope), it's clear that none of the breed have any real regard for religion, faith, belief, &c.; Charles was quite prepared to make all sorts of wedding-vows while at the same time conducting an affair, and no true Christian could live the kind of extravagant, privileged, cosseted lives these parasites have whilst so many "subjects" struggle with day-to-day existence. I know not which eighteenth-century quotation would be more appropriate with regard to the whole archaic absurdity of hereditary monarchy, whichever set of rogues wears the glad-rags and glitter, Paine's observation that "a long habit of not thinking something wrong is not in itself sufficient to make it right", or Johnson's assessment of two minor writers, "there is no settling the precedence between a louse and a flea". With regard to the whole religious, "D of F" business, Behan is memorable:

"Beware of the Anglican minister,
Of false Church and false creed and false faith,
The foundation stone of his temple
Being the ballocks of Henry the Eighth".

(The power – supply was interrupted earlier, hence the gap).

I don't think any reply is necessary, 42flanker, since it's clear we're singing from the same hymn-sheet (just maybe on different verses). Don't know what's more irritating, these cuifs ranting with their countless thousands of pounds, or the countless thousands of slack-jawed forelock-tuggers who follow their every (public) move and utterance; you might say it raises my hackles.

I'm totally confused now. I thought English was the primary language on this site?

I guess you mean what linguists term "English English". There's a definite and discernable difference among "EnglishEnglish", "HibernoEnglish", "AmericanEnglish" and, obviously, "ScotsEnglish". Notice how I've used the American idiom in the first sentence, and perhaps remember there was some discussion some years ago about whether President Obama would naturally say, " at the end of the line" or "at the end of the queue". Nowadays, it's very easy to find translations or synonyms on the Internet, and some words – like "hackle", say – can have different significations, and whiles, mair than yin micht be unco weel walit.