The Most Irritating Myth of the Napoleonic Era

Through a glass darkly Two points I'd like to make: Really, have we not reached a stage where we should recognise that using pejorative terms for those at the opposite end of the spectrum regarding Bonaparte or any other figure being scrutinised, do not advance the discussion. With the advent of podcasts, those who have spent months, years immersed in study or production of written materials really should, when they graduate to the spoken word, do some work on pronunciation of historic, foreign and other exotic names or technical terms. It can only add authority and, dare I say it, dignity, to the online discussions. I shall now return to my couch

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Of cource I am in line with Ed Coss and I am equaly upset, better to say enraged or faché as the French say about the denial and disregard of Boney's frame of mind, that professionals came to the conclusion that Napoléon was a narcissist was no surprise to me. I recall very well how I was attacked in the past - just by pointing this out, his megalomania as well - doing psycho babble. Also I share the disgust that those evident streaks, like no empathy, are neither mentioned or ignored as in recent biographic works, like Napoléon the Great and that those professional historians, from the Boney fawning camp, even recommend those works of myth - as Markham did in one of those talks of the Masséna society. The need of a surrogate to God is sadly apparant, there exist fawners of the worst kind of dictators who were responsible to the death of millions of people, yet there exist religous woreship.

An interesting point is the Invasion threat - after Trafalgar, I am quite undicided on that, so Boney claimed that he did just need 6 hours of command on the Manche, this is of course bullocks, they needed two days to get their invasion barges over, and there was only a very short season margin as well, you could not do it in 8 hours daylight? So in my view a full scale invasion wasn't that threatening at all, but - I was always wondering, why not invading Ireland, in case Hoche would have made it in the Revolutionary period, then there would be big trouble on the horizon. France missed however their best bit to bring down perfious Albion in 1745 at the Jacobite Rebellion, the French Irish Brigade in full and the Royal Ecossaise would have done it to give Bonnie Prince Charlie the edge in his campaign against London.

ery good points of Josh Provan and Rachael Stark, I am surprised that Zack is surprised that Boney made Grouchy a scapegoat - remember he is a narcissist, what do you expect of them, this is a typical trait - they never ever ever do something wrong.

1. I share also Jimmy Chen's view about general winter but the hard truth and that cannot be - is that Boney was simply outgeneraled by his Russian counterparts, unheard of and that cannot be true - for those reasons this has to be constructed that a season beated the greatest general of all times.
   

2. [19:31]The same by the way, the downplay from the French side of Blücher's army in the 1815 campaign and especially at the battle of Belle Alliance, Boney and his fawners can live with the idea (even in reality of his narcissist views the defeat was due to Grouchy and Ney) to be beaten by the English - this suppresion of the Allied victory in contrast to the English one - is also a construct of post mortem propaganda to find another reasons why the master of war suffered such a crushing defeat and being outgeneraled in strategy and in operational art of war by the Allied, comprising of such people as from Nassau, Belgium, the Neatherlands, Hannover and the Prussians, shure he could have beaten those hands down, but then those English were the true cause of his defeat. By the way the Grande Armée of 1812 wasn't French, it was an Allied Army and a lot of so called French units hand been some few years before Durch, or German, or Italian.

1. By the way the Mongols invaded Russia in winter because the rivers were frozen solid and they could cross them easily and they conquered it.

And here my rant on that - not a must read

1. Just listening about the myth podcast, and I have to voice my opinion in sequences - about Wellington, I don't understand the discussion at all - other again that Wellington fawners are still under the spell of the dominating view by Napoléon - what is wrong being a defensive general, what is wrong being a master of retreats - just seeing this as a praise, it seems to be seen as a blame, of course yes, he was also on the offensive as well - but why ranting so much about his defensive and retreating skills? As to Beatrice de Graaf, I totaly disagree she gets all wrong my muddling Prussia again with Germany - the king calls and all came - is Prussian, it has nothing to do with Germany at all. Am Anfang war Napoleon - is a joke - am Anfang was the German empire, or lets say the Franconian empire formed by Charlemagne - and it still existed when Boney was first Consul and there were already sentiments about Germany of the German people, despite living in upteen German states, there was still an understanding of Germany as such, as the German empire. Only when it was destroyed by Boney by crowning himself of empire of the French and to more or less cause the Austrian King, resigned being elected German emperor and embraced to be Austrian emperor.
   

2. [11:59]Of course a lot of German states took advantage of then joining Napoleon, they gained land, they gained titles, now instead of being princes - some became Kings, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, the Confederation of the Rhine sort of re - placed the German Empire but their master wasn't longer a German, their master wasn't elected by them, their master did not run a constat parliament and moreover their master did force them to wage wars and they hardly could put up any resistance and had to obey like lackeys. Of course being Allies to Boney they had to fight with him for his interests, this was different in the old Reich. This dawned on them but they couldn't escape so easily. In the old Reich, the Kaiser ensured that those dominions existed and that they weren't in the danger to be crossed off by the tip of a pen or the superhuman madman like Boney.
   

3. [12:05]Now about the Saxons of 1815, do people ever read German / Saxon sources about that??? It seems no. The main problem was not to fight against Boney but that the Saxon Army was left in the dark what should happen about their King and their state as such. In case a Saxon King would have been on the throne in 1815 and running Saxony, and it would be evident what the fate of Saxony would be, the Saxon soldiers and army would have fought happily against Boney, in fact they hated him due to the distruction of Saxony 1813 but they even hated it more to become Prussians, or that the state of Saxony would be destroyed, there are very good memoires which express the sentiments of the Saxon officers drawn into that turmoil and it wasn't also the whole Saxon Army as such but certain units as the Leib Grenadier Garde. A Prussian general who spoke up for the Saxons, was even arrested and imprisoned, so a badly informed and out of context again myth of the Saxon Army and Germany in general.