"What would Britain look like if Napoleon had won" Topic

Waterloo battle?

"…"Waterloo is interesting, because it's won by the forces of reaction and Blucher and Wellington are supreme reactionaries," General Sir Richard Shirreff told BBC's Newsnight programme.

"They are in a sense beating the forces unleashed by the French revolution."

Liberté, égalité, fraternité were, nominally at least, the values of the revolution. They remain the official motto of the French Republic to this day…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

There would be no Waterloo Station.

Once again, a silly article ignores the massive Austrian and Russian armies….
Oh, why do I bother?
Believe nonsense if you must.

Imho … the article does not try to develop the idea that perhaps Napoleon could have won the Battle of Waterloo … what it tries to do is "imagine" what would have happened in England afterwards if Napoleon had managed to defeat it … there are thousands of "what ifs" throughout our long history … I don't understand why in this Forum people are so irritable and sensitive if someone tries to develop a hypothesis of that style…. (smile)

That distinguished group … maybe … to improve their health … should ignore it?… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

"I would have proclaimed a republic and the abolition of the nobility and the House of Peers, the distribution of the property of such of the latter as opposed me amongst my partisans,"

Would these partisans have been added to the princes and dukes created by the Emperor in France?

There would have just been one, or two more years added to the war …and so, much the same.

Opening the mind as recommended by The Tango:

Wiki – Corn laws 1815

Perhaps these wouldn't have been passed and the dream of free trade within Europe would have been achieved?

Or perhaps the slave trade would have been restored as Napoleon did in the French Empire?

Anyway- in my view a more interesting set of what-ifs was if the French had won the Battle of Trafalgar.

Austerlitz, Trafalgar, then Sicily?

Happier, the EU and the Brexit wasn't needed

Ah, more of ze codswollop, written by someone with the historical understanding of a urinal and the inability to spend 10 minutes on Google researching a subject

Here is three minutes of actual thought about such a scenario

The whole of Europe united against the French revolution because of the threat it presented to ruling classes. It wasn't just about the guillotine – the British already had experience in "shortening" the role of Kings. Napoleon rode that wave. Mr Stoppage mentioned corn laws – Peterloo is another example.

Napoleon's thoughts on unifying Germany and Italy were 50-70 years ahead of their time. Perhaps a more balanced Europe with less focus on the role of Kings, Kaisers and Emperors would have prevented WW1 and WW2 ? The absence of WW2 from history would of course be something that no wargamer would welcome.

There is a comment in this "article" that "the Royal family is popular, but the house of Lords is an anachronism". Funnily enough, I long felt the opposite. I saw many times that the House of Lords represented popular opinion and pragmatism better than the commons. Perhaps something to do with appointing people who have spent a lifetime in service to a Nation. Maybe I'm just a Lord Coe groupie

So Armand, please don't blame me for hating that "article". Any more of these, and I will have to come up with a synonym for codswollop. I wonder if there is French equivalent ?

John

I have never hear the word "codwollop"… what it means?…

By the way, imho … it would have been impractical for Napoleon to scrap the British Royal family at one stroke … he didn't do it with the Austrian Royal family after beating them so many times … he didn't do it with the Prussians … yes He did it with the Spanish … but they cannot even be compared with the British royal house …

Amicalement
Armand

Napoleon would have manoeuvred some descendant or other of the Stuarts on to the British throne (the direct line having died with Henry IX).

+€|Z

jwebster- I think you make some good points.

However, I don't think it's accurate that Europe united against the French Revolution only because it threatened the ruling classes- that is too simplistic.

The French Revolution was seen by those who opposed it as a number of things- and of course those who opposed it are by no means a monolithic body. Also worth making the obvious point that the aims of the revolution, and consequently the objections to it- evolved somewhat over time. So the list below is an amalgam-

- a threat to the ruling class certainly- we'll give that top billing- even if it actually meant replacing one form of arbitrary rule with another (much more bloodthirsty one).
- closely linked to the above- an attempt by the STATE closely to regulate and control the possession of personal wealth and property- and not just that of the rich.
- a threat to the Christian religion. Even Protestant Brits and Prussians saw something wrong both in what happened to the Catholic clergy and to the practise and teaching of Christianity in revolutionary France.
- yet another revival of French attempts to gain hegemony in Europe, with the added twist justification after 1793 of promoting a new form of social organisation whether or not people wanted it or not.

There are more but that should suffice to show that it wasn't just the pampered nobles of Europe who opposed the French revolution in the 1790s any more than it was only the capitalist billionaires of the US who opposed Soviet communism in the 1950s.

I don't see a defeat at Waterloo in itself causing a massive impact on British society despite the great blow to national prestige. Napoleon had one shot at getting it right, in contrast those allied against him could take several knocks and still be in the fight.
I can't see Napoleon being free to make plans for invasion unless he had first knocked out Austria and Russia.
I could see there being an extended war with Britain funding its allies again and maintaining naval superiority, and looking for some way to make a contribution on the mainland, but very modestly if its main field army had taken as much of a battering in defeat as the French did in reality.

Forrester + 1

Amicalement
Armand

Well, he didn`t win… maybe Bouanpartists should just give up on the idea?

There is a massive gap in between a victory at Waterloo and the successful invasion of Britain, let alone the conquest of China and the rest of it…

bounapartist

bounapartist

bounapartist

bounapartist

bounapartist

If Napoleon had defeated and subjugated Britain? What would have happened is what happened to everyone else. One of his relatives would have been installed as monarch, privillage, rank and gifts would have been handed out to his cronies and as many of those willing to collaborate as possible.

The free press would have ended, theatres will have been subject to censorship and imperial secret police deployed. Slavery would have been re-introduced. The rich and powerful would have remained rich and powerful, just rich and powerful by sucking up to a different regime. Liberte Egalite Fraternite from someone who created an aristocracy and made himself an hereditary monarch? I'd sooner believe an 80% poll victory in a former Soviet bloc dictatorship!

In a few short years Napoleon would have died, and without the strongman the empire would have fallen apart.

OK, I have to agree with you David and that history tends to rhyme!

Handlebarbleep & ReallySameSeneffeAsBefore

Slavery would not have to be reintroduced. LOL

Slavery was rife everywhere. And even when Britain took over the Island of Martinique in 1794 – they not only placed the Royalists back into power, their property restored and slavery carried on. No one stopped it and emancipation was banned.

Slavery continued throughout the period and even in 1833 there were said to be 46,000 slave owners in Britain. The British government, in response to the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, even compensated the slave owners for loss of their, wait for it – property ' to the sum of £20.00 GBP, which is equal to around 16 billion pounds today.

So before anyone throws Napoleon up as the bad boy reintroducing slavery – they were ALL bad boys and sadly, slavery flourished.

Slave trade Gazzola- slave trade. Read my post properly.

There is no question that Napoleon legislated to reintroduce the slave trade (and indeed the very institution of slavery itself) to the French Empire- Is There?

Sorry guys, I didn't expect anyone to actually believe my drivel . I just wanted to show that anyone with half a brain (a generous assessment according to my kids) could come up with something better in 3 minutes

Cher M. Armand – "codswollop". Ca vieu dire "nonsense" ou "rubbish". C'est de l'argot. Je n'ais pas estudier Francais depuis l'age de dix-sept, peu t'aitre mon oncle aura des idees.

"sottiese" ?
"bobards" ?
"billevesées" ?
"tas de guano" ?

Excusez-moi mon Francais. Je sais bien que c'est vachement affreux

John

Slavery continued throughout the period and even in 1833 there were said to be 46,000 slave owners in Britain. The British government, in response to the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, even compensated the slave owners for loss of their, wait for it – property ' to the sum of £20.00 GBP(000,000)

And? Please enlighten us as to what would have happened if the Government had not? And anyway, Britain had and would go on to shed much blood and gold enforcing the ban on trade and slavery as a whole.
For all the self-flagellation of some Brits these days, Slavery was hugely irradicated from the world by Britain but with the third-world still at it to this day. But then, they have been the source of it for thousands of years in both supplying and using. No doubt it will still be going on for the next millennia with the usual suspects as its source.

which is equal to around 16 billion pounds today.

link

The US Civil war cost $5.2 USD Billion in today's money.

Interesting discussion, Tango01, but . . .

What's this got to do with wargaming with figures ?

'cod's wallop, a load of' = drivel, nonsense

'cods' = the gonads
'wallop' =/ possibly a rhyming evocation of a tautologous testicular term- 'ba1!ocks'

See: "load of old cobblers" – rhyming slang ' cobblers' awls' = balls.

Based on an idea inspired by an original idea from:

'A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'
By Eric Partridge (8th Ed)

Ah!…balivernes… merci bien…

Rien pour vous excuser mon bon ami … votre français est bon et parfaitement compréhensible …

Amicalement
Armand

Amicalement
Armand

Thank you 42flanker

I was going to make a comment along the lines of codswallop being unique in British slang in that it doesn't refer to bodily parts or sexual practices

I am now educated

John

dibble

You appear to be missing the point completely in your flag waving post.

The fact is, people throw the slavery angle at Napoleon as a negative thing, while the very nations they support, such as Britain did nothing to stop slavery until AFTER the Napoleonic period. They don't throw Britain up, for example, as a nation supporting slavery (and Nelson was a great supporter of slavery and against those opposing it) as a negative. Sadly, slavery continued for quite some time.

It is also quite clear you don't seem to understand the fact the great nation that you boast stopped slavery, paid 'compensation' and considered the slaves (eg: people) as property. That's putting money before people and had they not done so, as you ask, suggests the slave owners would have carried on with their slavery. The government should have, if you consider the British as really wanting to stop slavery at the time, just made them stop and not paid them such a large amount of public money.

I am not knocking Britain as I believe you want to believe, I'm trying to point the reality to those that like pointing the finger at Napoleon so quickly and so often appear to be blinkered to anyone else doing the same thing. Like I said, they were ALL bad guys supporting slavery, mainly due to greed and making money which was the norm then and remained so until long after the Napoleonic period.

Gazzola, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire was passed in 1807, which surely counts as a first step towards stopping slavery and was certainly during the Napoleonic period.

Would you have preferred that Britain resolved the slavery question by fighting, death and destruction, as did the United States, rather than resolving the issue peacefully? Both processes involved spending a large amount of public money, so nothing to choose between them on purely financial grounds, only in terms of lives destroyed.

@arthur1815 and @Gazzola

The compensation paid to slave owners can be argued as immoral, but is supported by sound legal practice and precedence going back to the foundations of Magna Carta.

If something that was previously legal and regulated is now made illegal then the crown cannot simply sieze or confiscate that property. Thus slave owners were compensated, as I was on the surrender of my hitherto legally held handguns in the 1990's.

I always find it odd that we rush to condemn slave owners, yet abolishionists, who by the power of their moral argument alone persuaded a society to do something contrary to their traditional interests, attract little notice. Instead of holding up the compensation as a sign of weakness it actually demonstrates the strength of the case made.

I wonder where those abolishionists would have sat in relation to a Napoleonic 'British' government. In fact, how would he have coped with the rising non-conformist and methodist movements?

The hard facts were that the Caribbean plantations represented an important element in British trade and British capital. It was no accident that so much treasure and so many soldiers lives were expended in defending the British possessions and wresting control of the French islands (which was as defensive an initiative as it was aquisitive). I was surprised to learn that a greater proportion of the army was deployed to the West Indies than in any other zone of conflict. That system could not be dismantled overnight without destabilizing the economy, however repugnant the use of slave labour might be. Huge amounts of capital were bound up in the system. Britain was a beneficiary of both the slave trade and the plantations. it is only now becoming clear what proportion of the upper and middle classes had a stake in slavery. Hence the compensation programme. Despite the 1807 act, we have no real justification for complacency as a nation.

I am not au fait with the decisions re. the timing of the final abolition of slave labour- thirty years does seem have been taking it very cautiously, although realistically no radical steps could be taken until the war was over. At least the kidnapping of and subjection of African villagers to the horrors of the Middle Passage – which was the most urgent target of the abolitionists- ended after 1807. However, as the situation in the southern states of America showed, that did not produce a universal withering of the plantation economy as the supply of slaves dried up.

It is also a hard fact that Napoleon legislated for the RE-INTRODUCTION of the slave trade and of slavery itself into the French Empire after it had been abolished during the Revolution.

The fact that Napoleon actually passed legislation to bring slavery back must rank as one of his very very worst acts. Nothing detracts from the wrongs of British involvement in slavery- but deliberately reversing France's previous abolition of slavery puts Napoleon in class of his own in this respect.

How many people were brought into slavery as a result of this Napoleonic legislation is a second order issue- the point is that Napoleon did deliberately and actively attempt to bring slavery back to his colonial possessions.

Yes, but the British navy bombarded Copenhagen, so.

Gazzola:

I am not knocking Britain as I believe you want to believe,

There is no 'belief' The track record is on this site for all to see.

It is also quite clear you don't seem to understand the fact the great nation that you boast stopped slavery, paid 'compensation' and considered the slaves (eg: people) as property. That's putting money before people and had they not done so, as you ask, suggests the slave owners would have carried on with their slavery. The government should have, if you consider the British as really wanting to stop slavery at the time, just made them stop and not paid them such a large amount of public money.

I will ask again:

Please enlighten us as to what would have happened if the Government had not?

I reckon, a lot more blood and treasure. What say you?

dibble, handlebarbleep, ReallySameSeneffeAsBefore

What the British government could have done, those that did want to abolish slavery, is to stop it altogether and not compensate those who accepted human beings as nothing more than 'property'. Unfortunately for the slaves, there were obviously more people at the time who saw nothing wrong with the human suffering, rape and death of men, women and children, as long as they were making a profit out of it.

And for those who suggest we should not be throwing todays morals on those of the past, should realise that they obviously don't know their own history because so many did oppose it then. But there were too many people making money from the suffering and exploitation of their 'property'.

It is also interesting that we are somehow supposed to accept that the those profiting from slavery and the suffering involved are fine and it was the norm and therefore no one should dare offer any criticism about it, unless of course, it is Napoleon. So many hypocrites!

Dibble, the fact you mention that there would have been more blood, had the government not paid out billions to the slave owners, suggests you understand that the slave owners did not consider their 'property' as human beings, just a means of making money. And the very fact that the British government agreed to pay such people, proves that they considered owning 'property' was more important than human lives.

Anyway, I am sure that those who like to throw the slavery angle at Napoleon, will now think on to how all the nations were supporting slavery, including Britain. That's why it continued for so long and long after Napoleon's death.

I think this link shows clearly how involved the British were in slavery and their paltry attempts to stop it. But it does show how their efforts increased, once the Napoleonic wars were over. So a bit of a positive for the Brits which I'm sure dibble will appreciate. LOL

But it is worth reading the whole article in case people think it is just knocking Britain. I'm sure flag wavers, blinker wearers and Nap haters will just about be able to manage it. After all, it even knocks the French, albeit the post-Napoleon French. LOL

link

@Gazzola,

I'm not disputing the evil of slavery. or doubting for one minute the moral strenth of the abolishionist's cause.

However, it's pretty typical of the rather conservative (small 'c') attitude that it achieved it cautiously and incrementally. It also refelected the spirit of Magna Carta that no one should be deprived of something that was previously legal without due process.

It still does. When civillian pistol ownership was substantially proscribed, owners of these items were duly compensated at largely market rates. Compliance with the scheme was pretty much total, with none of this "cold dead hand" nonsense. Compensation therefore appears a relatively successful tactic.

I don't think that whilst the British Government was embarked on a path of divesting itself of the slave trade, pointing out that France was going in the reverse direction is particularly "Nap bashing". Just answering the OP's question of one of the ways Britain would be different under Napoleon.

I know about Godwin's Law, but perhaps it needs a codocil about pre-ACW history and slavery, nowadays. It seems to pop up a lot on this board lately.

We have a few woke twerps. It's what the Stifle function is for.

@nine pound round and @4th Cuirassier

I don't think slavery comes up because of any particular wokeism, but rather it's 'colattoral damage' in the perrenial Napoleon The Great/Corsican Ogre debate.

It's a source of cognitive dissonance that whilst the "evil and reactionary" British Empire was on a trajectory of restricting and eventually banning the slave trade the "enlightened and progressive" Napoleon was re-introducing it. The debate isn't really about slavery at all, or about moral ascendancy (All sides practiced slavery in the past and eventually reached a state of affairs where they did not).

The problem goes to the heart of our heroes and how we think of them. It is axiomatic that evil people and regimes may still do good deeds, even for right and proper reasons rather than the self-serving. More problemmatic is that our heroes have feet of clay and occaisionally do things that don't fit our model of them, sometimes for the most base and unsavoury reasons.

Denying that simple fact normally leads to mumpsimus all round.

I agree with Handlebar's arguments. However, I do think that it is about more than collateral damage in a reputational debate, and how we see our heroes.

No one is denying the wrongs of British involvement in the slave trade- and of course the wrongs of the other countries involved in it too. No one is denying that Britain's path to abolishing the slave trade and then slavery itself was slow, hesitant and on the part of some people in power, reluctant. No one is denying that the slowness of the British response prolonged the suffering caused by slavery in the British Empire. No one is denying any of that- so although the British direction of travel was all one way towards complete abolition- there can't be uncritical praise of Britain.

What cannot be denied by anybody though- for it is hard incontrovertible fact- is that Napoleon deliberately chose to move in the opposite direction and to reinstate slavery and the slave trade in his Empire, after it had been abolished.

Napoleon did not have to take that deliberate action- he could have done nothing- but he chose to do it. Napoleon actively chose to bring back slavery into his colonial possessions.

It was this conscious and active attempt by Napoleon to bring back slavery and the slave trade that sets him apart. The fact that Napoleon largely failed in this attempt is neither her nor there. Any attempt, as seen in some other posts, to draw equivalence between Britain's slow and hesitant but ultimately successful efforts to abolish slavery, and Napoleon's active effort to BRING SLAVERY BACK- is quite reprehensible.

It's a good and valid point that in the broader sweep of history, all sides had practised slavery in the past but in the end all stopped doing so. But Napoleon stands out in this respect exactly because he actively tried to reverse that trend. Whatever else good and bad is in Napoleon's legacy- his desire to bring back slavery is an indelible stain on it.

At some point, every debate stops being about the topic, and degenerates into a struggle for moral advantage between the debaters. That is what is really happening. This is a board for miniatures gaming; it often feels as if it has degenerated into an ongoing debate between two competing views about Napoleon. That's fine, it's not an illegitimate topic per se, but given the sheer number of doghousings these threads generate, it seems to me that the argument over slavery is simply something both sides have seized on as the ultimate evil, and one they can pin on their opponent‘s side to score the ultimate point.

There's a lot of historical knowledge on this board, and I can honestly say I have received useful and much-appreciated advice from partisans of both views, but lately it has seemed to me that it's generating more heat than light, and that's a shame.

@nine pound round

I agree, it's a shame. My favourite word at the moment is mumpsimus, and that is where such moral discussions tend to lead us. Slavery is, for obvious reasons, a hot topic at the moment and therefore leads there more often than most.

I think the problem is that "social historians" (if I can call them that?) tend to talk in broad sweeps of trends, struggles and developments. A macro view if you like. We military history buffs tend to be more means rather than ends, focussed on detail, in fact almost forensically so. I don't think we often make the transition from micro to macro and back terribly well. Certainly not with the 'professional detachment' cultivated by some or without ocassionally betraying our cognitive biases or personal world view.

It doesn't make us bad people, unless we spill over into insult. As long as we can accept that others will make different interpretations, yet that doesn't make them wrong, wool-headed or ignorant, I think we are fine.

The negative factor of Napoleon reintroducing slavery is
thrown to create a moral effect by those who ignore the reality of the period.

I'm not trying to defend Napoleon for doing so, but he was basically doing what every other nation was doing and for the same reason-money. Slavery did not stop. Britain, for example, did not stop slavery.

In terms of the moral angle, I think the fact that Britain still had 46,000 slave owners who were paid billions in today's terms, for the loss of their property, long after Napoleon's death, shows the reality of their attempts to stop slavery. Not only were the slaves owners compensated with cash the so called freed slaves still had to undertake unpaid labour for their owners for 45 hours a week, without pay for four years. A funny sort of freedom that is, I think you will all agree.

But when people throw Napoleon reintroducing slavery as negative, which it is, they should should also admit that the other nations, including Britain carried on with slavery. They never stopped it until long after the Emperor's death and the end of the Napoleonic period, so it is quite hypocritical to throw a negative at Napoleon, knowing that slavery continued everywhere anyway. LOL

Even Toussaint kept slavery and its organisation going, as can be seen in the article below.

link

In terms of the original question, had Napoleon won at Waterloo, what would Britain have looked like? Probably much the same, slavery would have continued and slaves owners in Britain would have carried on making money as they did until long after Napoleon's death.

Gazzola- I don't agree with your viewpoint at all.

You'll see that my posts above at any rate make no attempt to conceal or diminish Britain's record in the this respect or that the process finally to end slavery was very slow and by some, reluctant- but it was inexorable.

The case of Napoleon is quite different. It is a case of Napoleon having a choice to leave slavery abolished or take positive steps to reintroduce it- and he chose to reintroduce it. Slavery and the slave trade had been abolished by law under the revolution in France's colonial possessions. Napoleon deliberately chose- by law- to reintroduce it. He could have done nothing- but he didn't- he CHOSE to reintroduce it.

No amount of pleas about how bad other people were or how slow they were to properly get rid of slavery stands in any comparison to Napoleon's deliberate decision to bring slavery back after it had been abolished.
You have written at length about the delay between the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire and the abolition of slavery itself within it. But when do you think slavery would have been abolished in the French empire under Napoleon- if ever?

You might also denigrate the process of Britain's abolition of slavery as 'a funny sort of freedom'. But had Napoleon had his way over slavery- that wouldn't have been funny at all- and there would have been no freedom. I think we will all agree on that.

I genuinely hope that you do see that complete distinction between the two cases. Doing the right thing slowly and badly- or doing the WRONG thing. It's quite simple.

If it was the wrong thing, then why didn't Britain abolish slavery altogether? They didn't, it flourished. And no one else stopped it!

Napoleon reintroduced it, that's a fact, although it was never really stopped anyway, and for the same reason that Britain deliberately failed to stop it. It made money and the economy and making money mattered more than the suffering of the slaves, especially with the constant costs of wars and funding others to go to war with France.

You would think that when Britain took over certain areas and islands containing the plantations, they would have stopped slavery, had they felt that what Napoleon did was wrong. But they never. It wasn't wrong then by the people in power, in any nation, in the same way that you throw it up as we see it as wrong now. There were those who opposed it, sure enough, but not enough to make anything happen until long after the Napoleonic period.

And you have to admit that when Napoleon's rule was over, the restored French Royals did not stop slavery. The French Royals did not end it and France did not abolish it until 1848. So they did not seem to believe that slavery or Napoleon reintroducing it was wrong, did they?

And your point about my statement about the pathetic attempts of Britain to stop slavery, who can say what Napoleon would or would not have done or if he would or would not have ended slavery at all. Possibly not. But that accusation can be thrown at any government and ruler of the period and the historical periods following, so for people to shout naughty Napoleon for doing what everyone else was doing, is nothing more than pure hypocrisy – surely you can see and understand that?

Britain, just like Napoleon, did the wrong then (in present days eyes) and that's why they had over 46,000 slavers owners still living in Britain long after Napoleon's death. That is far more than doing things 'slowly'. And had the British government not paid the slaver owners billions in compensation, then slavery may well have continued in Britain and who knows for how long. Like I say, money talks and that's why slave owners were slave owners.

To highlight Napoleon reintroducing slavery as wrong, which of course, in our eyes, was, while not accepting or admitting that with every nation slavery flourished and did not stop it, is total farce. They were ALL WRONG. That's the point.

None of that chaff deceives anyone Gazzola- except perhaps you- which is a shame.

Napoleon decisively chose to reintroduce slavery and the slave trade in his colonial possessions, at the same period that the British were (sluggishly) moving in the opposite direction.

THAT is the point.

To be honest- the more that you choose to write about Napoleon's deliberate re-introduction of slavery and the the slave trade- the that more everyone is likely to focus on that undeniable fact. But that's your choice. Just like it was Napoleon's choice to bring back slavery to the French Empire.

ReallySameSeneffeAsBefore

'Chaff' No, I think that is an excuse and a feeble description of the truth that you might prefer to ignore. The reality of slavery and who did it and when and even who claimed to have stopped it, is far more complex and always connected to money and the economy, especially those making their millions out of it. Most people are aware of that.

You are trying to make out that Britain was moving 'sluggishly' towards stopping it. Really? Must have been really 'sluggish' then if there were 46,000 slave owners in Britain long after Napoleon's death, eh?

I suggest you get real and stop pretending that Britain was doing the right thing – they weren't. None of them were, Napoleon included, that's why slavery continued before, during and after the French Revolution, Napoleon's reign and certainly when the allies helped the Royalists back into power. And when Britain captured French colonies, they DID NOT STOP slavery. You do understand that, don't you? They did nothing. Yeah, real 'sluggish' that! LOL

If Britain or other nations had actively stopped slavery then yeah, they would have received my praise. But they didn't, did they? It is not chaff, it is the truth and perhaps a truth some people don't want to face. Better to ignore it and find something negative about Napoleon instead, even if it is the same as what everyone ese is doing.

I really find it both sad and comical that people prefer to focus on Napoleon reintroducing slavery as if he was the only one undertaking the evil practise for economical reasons. Apparently, according to you, it doesn't matter if ALL THE OTHER NATIONS were doing it, just ignore that fact, that reality, that truth. It's chaff! Napoleon reintroducing slavery (not that it ever stopped anyway) to put France on the same level as the other nations, is all that matters. What a joke and it is basically a cowards's way of looking at historical characters and facts. Fob the truth and reality as chaff.

If all the nations had stopped slavery and Napoleon reintroduced it, then yeah, that would have been something strong to throw at him. But they didn't, did they? I think you are just concentrating on Napoleon reintroducing slavery to throw a bad light on Napoleon. To you it doesn't matter that he was doing what others were doing, had been doing before he came on the scene and before and even during the French revolution, and also continued to do so long after his death. That doesn't matter. It is Napoleon doing it, so let's pick on him. It is so comical and obviously so hypocritical!

You are throwing today's values and morals on one historical character, while blatantly ignoring the fact that the rest were doing the same. Perhaps we should be praising Napoleon for banning the slave trade in 1815. Hey, perhaps that's why all the slave owning nations really went to war with him. LOL