Napoleon

"Our age has produced nothing great. I want to set an example"
                                                                       -Napoleon to Marmont during Italian Campaign

My imagination about Napoleon was fired after reading about him in Nehru's letters to Indira Gandhi(Published as Glimpses of World History) a few years ago. Nehru dedicated two letters completely to Napoleon among his 196 letters that presented an account of the most important phenomena in the history of the world.

 A product of the Revolution, Napoleon was a mixture of a statesman, soldier, scientist, mathematician, and a great lover. Above all he was soldier, the finest of the children of revolution. As a soldier he saved the republic from counter revolutionary forces both from internal and external enemies.

He tried to build a bridge between the old and the new, the old aristocratic tradition (that still had support among vast masses) and the new ideas that were brought about by the Revolution. Revolution presented a sudden break from the old and this friction caused by the sudden break had caused great distress to the people of France. Napoleon tried to smoothen the transition from old to new. In the end, he succumbed to the lure of traditions while trying to be realistic. He betrayed the very revolution that produced and nurtured him. He reintroduced nobility, installed his incompetent brothers as kings, tried to secure matrimonial alliances with old aristocratic families in a vain attempt to legitimize his rule. Instead of deriving the legitimacy of his rule from the people, he tried to create a dynasty of his own.

Hailed as the first modern European he realised the potential of science to change the world and gave complete support as an army general and an emperor, to it. He instituted merit as the sole criteria for positions of authority in public. He started Legion of Honour to encourage men of excellence.

About religion, he understood it as a social system that helps preserve social order. He said "What I see in religion is, not the mystery of the incarnation, but social order. It associates with heaven an idea of equality, which prevents the poor from massacring the rich. Religion has the same sort of value as vaccination. It gratifies our taste for the miraculous, but protects us from quacks; for the priests are worth more than the Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the German dreamers...Society cannot exist without inequality of property; but this latter cannot exist without religion. One who is dying of hunger when the man next to him is feasting on dainties, can only be sustained by a belief in a higher power, and by the conviction that in another world there will be different distribution of goods."

If we remove the veil of Gods, myths, and messiahs, isn't this what religion actually is, a political system consisting of  a set of principles, that make and protect a social system by demanding faithful adherence from its believers?

History and imagination were the two things that fired his confidence. They made him look upon himself as a man of destiny, a man who is destined to conquer the whole world like Alexander. He tried to draw a parallel to his empire with the mighty Roman Empire.

Yet with all the genius he had, he did not believe in ideal motives. As Nehru says, "...he was elemental almost, like a force of nature. Full of ideas and imagination he was, yet blind to the values of ideals and unselfish motives...", he considered self interest in the form of money and glory to be the only motive for everyone's actions. To quote Goethe, a contemporary of Napoleon and also a great admirer of him said, "Napoleon, who lived wholly for ideas, was nevertheless unable to grasp the nature of ideal motives; he repudiated the ideal, denied that there was any such thing, at the very time when he himself was eagerly trying to realise the ideal". He tried to secure the allegiance of his subordinates by the use of money and titles instead of using the ideas of the revolution to create a set of committed people around him. Ultimately he ended up having around him, people whose sole aim was self interest and self glory, who deserted him whenever it appeared like he was on the verge of losing power. They weren't bound by an idea that could endure the ups and downs of his personal glory. Finally it was the treachery of his own people around him that brought him down.

Until his last battle at Waterloo, no single commander could claim to have defeated Napoleon on the battleground. Europe trembled under his feet. But the grand army was completely destroyed in the harsh climatic conditions during the Russian campaign. It was the Russian climate that destroyed his military machine, and not the enemy empires. Coincidentally, though not surprisingly, it was the Russian campaign that spelt doom for Hitler too.

Being a great statesman and diplomat, his ideas on diplomacy where deception and cunning are still part of the game, are interesting. Thus he says, "Tact, and putting all the cards on the table, will do better service in diplomacy than cunning. The tricks of the diplomats of the old school are out of date; all their rogueries have been exposed long since....Nothing betrays weakness more than the attempt to deceive"

Europe saw the revolution and him, with contempt. Kings of other kingdoms did not like the existence of this ‘son of people’ on the throne, for it discredited their own claim to power, as a divine right. They waited for opportunities to dethrone him. They forced him to engage in constant battles to survive. The Kings of Europe forced France to expand beyond the natural boundaries.

The French empire created by him collapsed as soon as he abdicated the throne. But the ideas he had sown on European soil found resonance across the 19th century Europe. He shattered the myth of the divine right of kings. Though not as successful as in the hey-days of the revolution, he did establish a kingdom of Reason. Demands for popular sovereignty, German and Italian nationalism in later years of Europe, all find their origin in the ideas sown by Napoleon in the lands conquered by him. Thus his thoughts after the exile run as.... "There are in Europe more than thirty million Frenchmen, fifteen million Italians, thirty million Germans . . .Out of each of these peoples, I wanted to make a united national whole . . .That would have supplied the best chance of establishing a general unity of laws; a unity of principles and thoughts and feelings, of outlooks and interests. . .Then it would have been possible to think of founding the United States of Europe after the model of the United States of America. . .What perspectives of strength, greatness, and prosperity this opens up! ...... At the same time, I wanted to pave the way for the unification of the great interests of Europe, just as I had unified the parties in France . . . The transient mutterings of the people troubled me little; they would have been reconciled to me by the results . . .Europe would soon have become one nation, and any who traveled in it would always have been in a common fatherland. . .Sooner or later, this union will be brought about by the force of events. The first impetus has been given; and, after the fall and disappearance of my system, it seems to me that the only way in which equilibrium can be achieved in Europe is through a league of nations."

His plans of conquering India and the East are interesting. In his own words "Europe is a mole hill. It is only in the East that, great empires and revolutions are possible, where there are six hundred millions of men". He started Egyptian campaign with a view to contact and form an alliance with Tipu Sultan to overthrow the British rule in India. Had the fort of Acre fallen, had the battle of Nile not occurred, India's history would indeed have been much different.