(no subject)

[hatman]

The voices in my head just posed an interesting question:

Was Napoleon evil?

He overthrew the government of France in a military coup, set himself up as a dictator, and conquered much of Europe. At this time 200 years ago, he'd invaded Russia and was pushing his borders through the Middle East.

Not for any altruistic reasons. Not because the governments of those countries were oppressing their people. Not because he'd been attacked, or even really threatened. Basically... because he could. Because he had the means, strategic genius, and ambition to do it.

He wasn't torturing people or enslaving them or slaughtering them or anything like that.

Generally, his story is told in a way that notes his impressive accomplishments without a thought given to morality.

Arguably, by the standards of the time, he was just doing what most people would do given his talents and resources. Most countries were monarchies of some sort, and war raging back and forth across Europe was... far from unusual.

On the other hand: He was imposing his will by force on everyone around him, and trying to take over the world through force of arms mainly to satisfy his own ego. Aside from a secret lair in some exotic locale, how much really separates him from, say, the average Bond villain?

Comments

[nicki]

Depends on your viewpoint, I'd guess. He's one of my grandmother's heroes, right after Charles De Gaule. I suspect that my relatives heads were allowed to remain on their shoulders after he took power and at some point my ancestors quit hiding in England, which I imagine they were happy about. OTOH, big freaking war. I'd also guess my ancestors might not have been the nicest people.

[seekingferret]

It certainly depends on how you define 'evil', but quite a bit separates him from the average Bond villain. To start with, he had reasons for imposing his will on Europe that extended far beyond 'satisfying his own ego'. He was an egalitarian and the Napoleonic Code is still considered one of the world's great legislative achievements. From what I can tell of the history, the French Revolution was a far more socially disruptive way of imposing egalitarianism on a country than Napoleonic conquest.

The morality of nations is not measured the same way the morality of people is, or at least it shouldn't be, and certainly when Napoleon ruled, Europe was still uneasily groping toward a new definition of national morality, probably several generations of moral code behind the implicit and explicit ones we go by today. Was Napoleonic France evil? I find it hard to say. Some of the nations he conquered thought so, and some welcomed him as liberator. But he was definitely not evil as a Bond villain was evil.