Hitler and Napoleon were part of a group of people who have (sometimes briefly) ruled vast empires throughout history. Other examples are Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Gaius Julius Caesar, Alexander of Macedon, Sargon of Akkad and many others. In that context, there is nothing really unique about Napoleon. Like all of the others, he had a lust for power and he may have actually believed that the world was better off under his rule. However, Hitler is unique due to his viciousness and his obsession with race. None of the others murdered or enslaved people for no reason other than the race or ethnic group that they were born into. The others were all willing to accept anyone who did not resist their rule. Hitler was unique in that he murdered or enslaved people even if they never objected in any way to his rule.
Interesting topic for me. In my high school days read a history of Napoleon and France and was amazed in the preface to discover the author explaining that he wanted the reader to know that overall he felt Napoleon was on balance a positive player in european history. Besides being really surprised this commentary was at the start of the book and not at the end … never encountered an introduction like that again. Over the years personally came to generally agree with most of the observations that historian detailed and a learned a lot more about the split among historians.
With the post war rise of post WW2 French cultural nationalism (Charles De Gaulle articulated so well the idea that France was the origin of “civilization” etc) thought about Napoleon who I think envisioned a equalitarian super civilized France with an empire suitable to its destiny. Europe of the time didn’t want an expanded France at their expense and allied against that. The leadership of nearly all those countries were tied by heredity and wanted revenge against a country and its leadership that had executed part of its extended family.
-The dream of “empire” essentially ended on the battlefield with exile number one as the result.
-Seems to me Napoleon upon returning from exile would have foregone any dreams of more empire building in europe. However, both the royal families of europe and the aristocrats in France saw him as “the personification of evil.” The war that followed was an existential endeavor for them … makes it very plausible to me that he did not die in his second exile from “natural causes” (even though don’t think the issue will ever be resolved with forensic evidence).
Overall felt his time in power was a mixed bag. In some ways he left France in better shape than he found it and in other ways not so much. In the latter case as noted in the comment there were societal changes that stemmed from ideas espoused by american “revolutionaries” and that drove the wave of changes throughout europe in the 1790 (trigger yet another rebellion in Ireland, etc). His demise pushed them in France more or less underground until another wave of change swept europe circa 1850. As noted with a follow on revolution they became mainstream.
Aside: Off topic somewhat … he was a big supporter of science in part to demonstrate the superiority of French “thinkers.” In one way he “changed the world” by promoting the simple logical metric system to replace the dominant english approach that was the standard of the day. During the period when England was considering joining the Common Market found it somewhat entertaining that its populace and traders were going to have to learn (or already had) to “think metric.” Of course in the US we had the metric on not debate (except in the area of drug labeling … no more grains, etc)
Hitler embodied the deep resentments felt by the Germans of his generation, defeated in the First World War. To be fair, the United Kingdom’s aristocracy would (eventually) yield to democratizing influences without (much) bloodshed—largely because they didn’t have a choice.
But the process was an excruciatingly gradual one, with many “two steps forward one step back” moments.
PByart of this was due to the successive shocks of the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the horrors of the French Revolution (and subsequent rise of Bonapartism), all of which meant that British aristocrats had ample opportunity to realize that they could only get away with so much, for so long.
But the ultimate “equalizer” (such as it was) was the Industrial Revolution. Once industrialization began in earnest, a lot of the power—both economic and political—that had previously been vested in the nobility and landed gentry was sapped by a newly ascendant class of bourgeoisie commoners. Once “Lord Such-and-Such, III” had to debase himself by begging “Argent, Bloed and Stone, LLC.” for a loan to finance his standard of living, the days of hereditary aristocracy were numbered, and the capitalist investor class would emerge victorious. He cultivated them, and honed them to perfection in order to channel his own deep hatreds into acts of extreme violence. It was violence that exponentially grew into an unceasing spiral as the war went on, and it involved an ideology that professed the absolution and ascendance of a higher race at the expense and extinction of lesser races. Under his banner, arguably normal, decent and upstanding German citizens committed barbarous crimes which resulted in six million murdered Jews and countless millions more dead in the bloodiest conflict known to man. Hitler’s legacy deserves our contempt.
Napoleon, meanwhile, inherited the legacy of the French Revolution. Having traversed the dangerous path to power and reached its zenith, he became the embodiment of the Revolution on horseback. Moreover, he manifested the fulfillment of its lofty promises, albeit in a regimented and undemocratic form. The Civil Code of France enshrined the aspirations of the Revolutionaries of 1793 and gave them the force of law, that it became the harbinger of much needed reform in Europe. Ideas that now underpin the modern world, like meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education and fiscal responsibility, says Andrew Roberts, were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. He spearheaded the modernization of Europe from the vestiges of ancien regime feudalism and rationalized government to an undreamt of level. Yet along with that, he fathered an authoritarian, technocratic state that, for all its efficiency and precision, went on a head on collision against that very feudalism, and with it, pushed Europe into a seemingly unending war. Napoleon’s fatal mistake was to deem compromise with contempt, and further the Revolution at the point of a bayonet, which was resented by the people he conquered, and fostered his eventual demise. Many of his most progressive aims came under fire from his enemies and was fiercely resisted by his subjects, who ironically, after his fall, eventually adopted them for their own.
There’s an interesting line in the documentary film adaptation of William L. Shirer’s book, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. It goes:
“Even tyrants left noble monuments. Adolf Hitler left only death.”
It sums up entirely what the world uniquely feels about Hitler. Unlike Napoleon, Hitler played a zero-sum game that featured something never before thought of in the history of modern warfare; that an industrialized and advanced nation in Europe should undertake a war of annihilation.
Whether one finds Napoleon as detestable or admirable often stems from one’s own values, beliefs and lived experiences; for instance, was the French Revolution a good thing or a bad thing? There are myriad explanations for either cause and many else in between. Thus his legacy is a point of seemingly never ending contention among historians, often shrouded under fierce national mythologies. Hitler on the other hand, leaves a far less arguable legacy. I would like to thank everyone for having taken the time to read and like this short piece that I wrote, as well as the mostly healthy discussion now happening in the comments section. I am highly gratified with your generosity and your creative input. I will do my very best to be as factual as I can in all my writing, and be judicious in my replies. Have a great day as always, and again, thank you very much!
Picture Source Wikipedia
Thanks for Reading
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