Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

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Most of the article is not about why we'd be better off - not to say it isn't worth reading, but at the end we find:

"If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world."

Some arguable points, but Napoleon was... shall we say, capricious. It seems naive to think that all this would have happened the way it's put there.

Still, it makes for fun speculation. If you like that, you should read Creasy's "15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World," at least if you don't mind a bit (well, more than a bit) of Anglocentrism. There's a lot of this "if things had gone the other way" stuff and it's great conversation fodder.

Also, Hugo's narrative of Waterloo in "Les Miserables" is wonderful and worth reading if you are at all intrigued.

For as much as history portrays Napoleon as a dictator (which he was), it neglects that most of his adversaries were ALSO dictators who did equally horrible things.

In Napoleon's mind, he wasn't as much conquering Europe as liberating it from the clutches of nobility. Napoleon viewed himself as a better kind of dictator than the other European monarchs: one who rose to power through his own merit and who selected men for tasks based on their abilities, not their bloodlines. This narrative was decidedly less popular outside of France -- which had essentially executed all of its nobility in the preceding decades, so there was nobody left to disagree. But it really was a war of ideals over who should rule: an arbitrary (and increasingly inbred) line of inherited nobility, or the best man for the job?

If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, Europe would have saved itself a century of war. But the USA would also not exist in its current form -- much of the reason for the rise of American dominance in the 20th century was because Europe was rebuilt after WWII by the American war machine cranking out large quantities of steel and industrial machinery.

And who knows how the 20th century would have turned out without the US as a global superpower. Maybe without war and famine in 19th century Europe, there's never a migration and the central US remains as uninhabited as Siberia. It's fun to think of the "what if?" questions,

Yet he installed his own son as the next emperor. So much for meritocracy.

or America could have ended up next on Napoleons list - lets be honest the US army in 1812 would have been no Mach for Napoleon.

I think Napoleon likely would have allied with the US over the long term. The US did not have the baggage of nobility, was ruled by enlightenment thinkers, and we already had a common enemy in the British.

That said, the US was a sparsely-populated backwater outpost at the time with only about 7 million inhabitants (a million of whom were slaves). For comparison, the population of Europe during the same time was close to 140 million. We simply didn't have the manpower, infrastructure or money to meaningfully contribute to a European conflict at the time.

Not to mention the enormous logistical difficulties of landing and supplying a cross-Atlantic amphibious army large enough to conquer a continent in the age of sail.

That would have never happened without British involvement, since they controlled the sea. Furthermore, as the article pointed out, Napoleon and America shared similar ideals. Finally, fighting a war in your homeland is infinitely easier than the supply lines Napoleon would have had to maintain to fight in America. It would have been absurdly expensive and would have opened France up to attack from its unfriendly neighbors. In conclusion, I do not think there is a likely scenario that envisions an America under Napoleonic rule.

True up to a point after you crown your self emperor any pretence of republicanism is long gone one option would be

1 Napoleon wins in Europe does a deal with UK give me Europe and you can have the Americas oh and I want Lousiana back one of my cousins wants to be a king.

or

2 Napoleon stays true his ideals and backs slave rebellions in the south and caribbean

Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States of America, so most likely he didn't care too much about this region. Granted, he may have been afraid of not being able to maintain it because of a naval inferiority, but I don't think expending in America was amongst his priorities.

Considering that America and France both shared a common enemy - Britain - during that time, that would be highly unlikely. The Louisiana Purchase also made that prospect unlikely, as did Napoleon's explicit admiration of American ideals and leadership (as the article pointed out).

What reason would Napoleon have to attempt (and probably fail; the American navy was not nearly as much of a pushover as you state the army to have been) to launch a trans-Atlantic campaign against what was historically an ally and a strong cultural/political influence?

> pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown

Not sure what this statement is about. It was British who abolished the slave trade, and pressured the rest of the world to follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807

Not quite. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline:

1792: Denmark–Norway declares transatlantic slave trade illegal after 1803 (though slavery continues in Danish colonies to 1848).[36]

1793: Upper Canada (Ontario) abolishes import of slaves by Act Against Slavery.

1794: France abolishes slavery in all its possessions. (However, slavery is restored by Napoleon in 1802.)[37]

Whenever I see a relatively respectable source, singing the praises of blood-thirty, ego-driven maniacs, I start to think that maybe the crazies who go on about giant conspiracies controlling everything might be onto something. (Either that, or the Smithsonian's editorial judgement is slipping.)

> the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism

China had meritocracy long before Europe, with public exams open to anyone for civil service in the empire.

We could debate the efficacy of the skills that were exhibited by imperial Chinese civil service exams, particularly at the contemporary era as Napoleon. A system that selects for devoting years or decades to studying Confucius and various commentaries thereon, and in learning to write formulaic "eight-legged" essays in an archaic dialect is meritocratic to some extent (although, to have the resources to adequately prepare for the exams required either the resources of the landed-gentry class, or pooling the resources of an extended clan to support a candidate to float all boats later through nepotism).

Now that I think about it, I really should have written my senior thesis on comparisons between the 21st century US and Qing China after the gilded age of the Qianlong emperor...

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