Napoleon: Life & Reputation

Referring to the American Revolution as 'someone else's civil war' presents a myopic viewpoint of the Revolution.

One of the points that the Americans made against Great Britain was that while they did consider themselves Englishmen, they weren't treated that way.

@Hans - Karl Weiß I think you are right. Whilst I don’t necessarily think that Napoleon‘s slide to being emperor was ever what the revolution was meant to be about I think his consolidation of power and stabilisation and reform of France prevented the revolution from being extinguished and guaranteed its survival. Often in times of upheaval the country needs a strong leader for a time. But I think that the direction he was moving in was ultimately towards another aristocracy. He was an enlightened despot after all and I don’t think France would have ever accepted that as the final destination.

He also read ancient history and I think he modelled himself on romans, which I don’t think is very progressive at all!

Eventually his reign would have been challenged and government would have evolved into something closer to a modern democracy and rights based state.

Left alone France would have no doubt evolved away from Napoleonic empire or faced another revolutio. But better to let France work that out than try and control the process into a constitution monarchy which is what they tried.

Well okay, but I don't count the second empire as the monarchy. They threw that off in 1848. Then they got saddled with a second empire as you say. But the French had moved to a republic before that, and moved back to one after Napoleon the 3rd abdicated in 1870.

@deanejay I rest my case

@john fortune well, except that the empire wasn't a monarchy. There are some important differences:

1) The monarchy draws its legitimacy from the divine right to rule of kings, backed by the church and tradition. Napoleon 3rd appealed much more to popular support and even democracy for his legitimacy, even though he was in power due to a coup d'état. For example he ran plebiscites for his biggest reforms to check whether the country wanted them, and won these. He extended suffrage to all men over 25, rather than the 0.3% under the monarchy. So paradoxically he was much more democratic than the monarchy.

2) The monarchy didn't really do government. They were essentially sat in power and used their power to keep themselves in privilege. Napoleon 3rd made significant social, and economic reforms, modernising the country, extending education and starting progressive social policies in the area of health care, and addressing social inequalities that were entrenched in laws at the time. Despite the authoritarian basis for his position, he was paradoxically much more socially progressive and egalitarian than the monarchy had been. He curtailed the control of the church over education was also much more progressive in regard to women's rights also. In many ways France boomed under his rule and he was generally pretty popular with the ordinary people.

3) The monarchy did not recognise the emperor as a monarch, and they were enemies. Louis Phillip had imprisoned him for life back in 1840.

So, I disagree. I don't really see equivalence between them, and historically speaking the French divested themselves of monarchy in 1848 when they chased Louis Phillip 1st out, established a new republic and elected a new president.

@Hans - Karl Weiß You asked for it

http://nsfarchives.altervista.org/napoleon/forum/archive2018_config.pl@md=read%3Bid=190244.html

@tomholmberg

thanks found it on my files eventually had it for a while, in case you don't mind here it is

"[t]he future Duke of Wellington, known for his humanity during the Napoleonic Wars, ordered his troops to burn entire villages and loot them completely during a campaign in Malabar in 1800." DAVID M. CROWE, WAR CRIMES, GENOCIDE, AND JUSTICE: A GLOBAL HISTORY (2014). P.65. 
‘On the other hand, when the Spanish plundering had made the peasants rise in arms, Wellington issued a proclamation requiring them either to join Soult's army or stay at home, otherwise he would burn villages and hang the inhabitants. 'Thus," says Napier, "notwithstanding the outcries against the French for this system of repressing the partida warfare in Spain, it was considered by the English general justifiable and necessary.”’ Glenn, Garrard. The Army and the Law. Columbia University Press, 1918. p.75. 
“Lindau does not write about strategy or tactics, but of things that concern the lowest ranks – staying alive and where his next meal would come from. He was a master forager and he could find something to eat in the midst of a starving army. Much of his story is about how evaded and out-witted various patrols, sergeants, officers, and local farmers in his quest to find something to eat. He was quite unapologetic about his activities and took pride in his looting farmers and cheating inn-keepers. A theme that runs through the book is that his sergeants and officers knew what he was doing and that as long as he shared his stash with his fellow soldiers and them, they turned a blind eye to his activities.” Review of “Waterloo Hero” – Napoleon Series, Bob Burnham 
“Adopting their usual military strong-arm response to such threats, the British initially sent out columns of redcoats to engage in punitive raids on villages thought to be sympathetic to Dhooniah….The redcoats, sent out to ‘restore tranquillity’ in rebellious localities, usually by wanton torching of villages and stealing of livestock, tried to instill in the inhabitants an ‘apprehension of their own safety.’ …Such was the situation encountered by Lieutenant-Colonel J. Montressor, an officer commanding the punitive expedition against the fortress and town of Arrakerry and its surrounding villages. After setting the villages alight…” Davies, Huw. Wellington’s Wars. Yale, 2012. p.25 
Wellington orders for Capt. Campbell, 27 Aug. 1799, “There is a place called Ey Goor, at the distance of about four or five coss from Munserabad, which is -the residence of the Rajah. You will be pleased to destroy it, and hang all persons either in it or Munserabad that you may find in arms.” 
Wellington, orders to the officer commanding a company at Simoga, Sept. 1799, “If he refuse to give you possession, you must attack the fort and take it by escalade, if you should deem it practicable to get at it; and having got into it, hang the killadar and all persons whom you may find there in arms.” 
Wellington to Lt.-Col. Tolfrey, 22 March 1800, “You will be joined at Ooscotta by the infantry above mentioned, to be encamped at Munserabad, and you will immediately attack the people at Ey Goor: you will burn that place, and you will hang all the people that you may find in arms, or that you may have reason to know have been so…” 
“Towards the end of the month [May 1800] Mr. Webbe secretary to the Government of Madras, wrote to Wellesley: “You are to pursue Dhundia Waugh wherever you may find him, and to hang him on the first tree. For this purpose you will receive immediate authority to enter the Mahratta frontier.” Forrest, George W. Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts. p.43. 
Wellington to Lt.-Col. Montresor, 4 May 1800, “It is very desirable that whenever you find a village deserted you should burn it, and wherever a man is in arms he should be put to death….In destroying Arrekeery it will be desirable to open the jungle as much as possible, and burn every habitation it contains.” 
Wellington to Maj. Munro, 7 Aug. 1800, “The durbash [translator] there ought to be hanged, for having made any difficulties in collecting rice to be stored.” 
Wellington to Major Palmer, 19 Aug. 1800, “I despatched orders to Mungush Rao last night to hang the commanding officer of peons, the chiefs of the tappall, and their myrmidons, guilty of delivering over to the enemy the aumildar of Soonda.” 
Wellington to Lieut. Col Bowser, 13 Sept. 1800, “Among the other measures taken to detain me was that of giving me guides who, at the end of two miles, swore they did not know the road, and would not show it, till they were threatened that they should be hanged.” 
Wellington to Col. Sartorius, 18 Sept 1800, “A hint might be given to him that I am in the habit of hanging those whom I find living under the protection of the Company and dealing treacherously towards their interests, I spare neither rank nor riches…” 
Wellington, 12 Sept. 1803, “They have some Pindars in my neighbourhood now, who have done us but little mischief themselves, but they have set the village peoples a-going and these have attacked our supplies, but a gallows or two will remedy that evil.” (Bennell, Anthony S. (ed), Maratha War Papers of Arthur Wellesley. Stroud, UK: Army Records Soc., 1998. p.276) 
Deputy Adjunct-General to Major Palmer, 24 October 1803, “…the Honourable Major-General Wellesley…may assure all such as who may behave in such a pusillanimous manner as to pay money to this army, that the General will hang them up before their own town gates.” 
Wellington to Maj. Malcolm 7 Sept. 1804, “However, as it is, the destruction of the band is complete, but I wished to hang some of their chiefs, pour encourager les autres.” 
Wellington to Marshal Beresford, 28 Jan. 1814 “You may also give the person you will send to understand, that if I have further reason to complain of these or any other villages, I will act towards them as the French did towards the towns and villages in Spain and Portugal; that is, I will totally destroy them, and hang up all the people belonging to them that I shall find. Let the rest of the people of Biddary be detained till we see what effect my letter produces.” 
“He briefly mentions the events at Scullabogue where several protestant men, women, and children were burned alive by rebels, but his horror seems directed more at the British Army and their actions at Enniscorthy where the British Army set fire to a hospital that housed ailing rebels. Wakefield describes it in these terms, “The army applied a lighted torch to the hospital at Enniscorthy, which was crowded with unresisting and wounded enemies, and consigned them to a similar fate. The destruction of these helpless wretches, by a death the most horrid that can be conceived, seemed to afford heart-felt gratification to those fiends who reveled in the blood of their fellow creatures” (366). Wakefield also expresses deep anxiety about the way in which the military took part in outright murder and the confiscation and destruction of the property of Irish peasants. He quotes from the account of a protestant bishop who was present on the spot: “The regiments that came to their assistance, being all militia, seemed to think they had a right to take the property they had been the means of preserving, and to use it as their own whenever they stood in need of it. Their rapacity differed in no respect from that of the rebels, except that they seized upon things with somewhat less ceremony or excuse, and that His Majesty’s soldiers were incomparably superior to the Irish traitors in dexterity at stealing.” Halverson, Colleen Booker. Fragmented Histories: 1798 and the Irish National Tale. (unpublished thesis.) University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 2012, p.41-42 
Lt.-Gen. Gerard Lake, commander-in-chief in Ireland during the 1798 uprising, ordered that the army take no prisoners. Maj.-Gen. David Dundas summarily executed 130 prisoners at Kilcullen. P.91 (note) After Ballinamuck almost all the Irish prisoners were executed. P.91 Knight, Roger. Britain Against Napoleon. (2013) 
Capturing a group of American soldiers who had been British subjects, some naturalized American citizens, some not-the British sent 23 to Britain as traitors. The Americans then held 23 British soldiers as hostages for the Americans. The British retaliated by holding 46 American POWs hostages, threatening to execute 2 for every British POW executed. In addition Lord Bathurst threatened “to prosecute the war with unmitigated severity against all cities, towns and villages belonging to the United States, and against all inhabitants thereof” if the hostages were harmed. (Two of the American 23 died while in British hands.) –Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812. Knopf, 2010. 

“All persons abandoning their homes after our entry into France, or absenting themselves in order to serve the usurper, shall be looked upon as his partisans and our enemies; and their property shall be confiscated and applied to the maintenance of the troops ”--Wellington. Malplaquet, June 22, 1815

@Hans - Karl Weiß Which other French army commander during the Wars of the French Revolution ended the war with Austria, defeated the Archduke Charl