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Comment by hristov | Hacker News Reader

The more I learn about modern history and current politics the more I realize that modern society is greatly harmed by the worshipful study of past warmongering despots.

A lot of the seemingly irrational and idiotic decisions taken by modern western politicians can perhaps be explained by the fact that they worshiped julius ceaser, alexander the great, napoleon, etc. at young impressionable age.

So sure we should study napoleon, but lets not worship him. In my opinion Napoleon is best remembered as part of the retreat from moscow. His army just a massive mob of running, freezing, starving men tripping along a snow covered path littered with frozen corpses and gold and silver and silk that they stole and realized they couldn't carry home. The great emperor abandoning his army and running quickly away on a fast sled, because he was already facing a coup at home.

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I respectfully disagree. Napoleon should be primarily remembered for the “Code Civil”. That stuff is a towering good deed, and dwarfs any battle won or lost. It’s reported that Napoleon himself admitted that, but I never could confirm the veracity of this quote. EDIT: typo.

Sounds quite cynical considering hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians who have died because of Napoleon's ambitions.

"because of Napoleons ambitions" - it is pretty unfair to lay the blame for the wars solely on Napoleon. The wars started because the monarchies of Europe ganged up against France after the revolution because they saw France was weakened and they wanted to prevent the ideas of the revolution to spread. Napoleon rose to prominence during these wars but just happened be be an extremely successful general. When France started winning, the propaganda of the monarchies like England painted him as a "madman" who wanted to "conquer the world", but from the viewpoint of France these were defensive wars.

Of course England at the time was fighting merciless wars of conquest all around the world in building their colonial empire. So they couldn't claim there were anything morally wrong with conquering the world. Instead their propaganda focused on the fact that Napoleon was a commoner rather than of old royal stock - something which was both offensive and scary to the old monarchies.

I understand your point of view. Of course I simplifed his reasons too much. But still, I have strong impression that he was too 'romantic' and passionate to be a winner who would remain in the history of mankind as one of the greatests rulers. His war in Russia was unbelievably daring plan, for example. Did he just want to be equal to Batu khan and others who had taken Moscow too? I would not be surprized at all. Again, it is just my personal impression, it can be far from reality of course.

It is pretty fair I think to blame it solely on him. Yes, they started as defensive wars, and yes he did a great job defending the republic. But at some point they turned into offensive wars. One can argue at what point exactly defense turned into lust for conquest but it is beyond doubt that this happened. You do not conquer most of Europe out of desire to defend yourself.

It sounds as if you might enjoy Henry Fielding's The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great.

Indeed, judging by their deeds and by the amount of human suffering that they created, both Caesar and Napoleon cannot be seen as anything but Hitlers of their times.

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