Why do people compare Napoleon to Hitler?

@Frontovik:

haha
even better
Napoleon invaded russia 23th of June, Hitler the 22th XD

Rather it be June than December 23!

@Imperious:

Napoleon invaded russia 23th of June, Hitler the 22th XD

That just proves they were reincarnations of each other. They make the same moves and get the same results.

Why would that prove anything about reincarnations? June is simply the best time to invade a country like Russia. Or perhaps Hitler studied Napoleon’s invasion and placed it around the same date for whatever deluded reason.

Also, the original date for Barbarossa was to be May 15, 1941. They invaded Russia for two entirely different reasons, one was right to invade, the other invading merely for “living space”.

And another thing: the French invaded on the 24th.

@calvinhobbesliker:

UN, I have a somewhat unrelated question. After Trafalgar, why couldn’t Britain amphibiously invade France?

Well, having failed in its attempts in 1793 and 1799, Napoleon was pretty confident they wouldn’t try to invade Holland or France anytime soon. There were 40,000 men of the 3rd and Depot battalions of the Grande Armee stationed in France, strengthened by a further 30,000 National Guards and conscripts. The British Army was spread all across the Empire; Canada, India, in Sicily as well. In 1793 its strength was barely 40,000 and by 1805 little had changed of that number (though by 1813 the Army was up to about 250,000). And on the other side of the coin the British spent much of its military spending on the Royal Navy.

Actually, if the French had successfully invaded Britain, I doubt the British Army would have been able to defeat it in an up-front battle. Sure, the Royal Navy might cut them off, but Napoleon made the necessary plans for the Grande Armee to survive independently for quite an extended period of time before it required supplies in England.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Ah yes, its army is, as usual, way inferior to its navy.

Quite. But by 1813 and 1814 it had improved remarkably, filled with veterans of the Peninsular War. Plus, the British Army was one of the only, if not THE only, Army to have not suffered a major defeat by Napoleon.

@calvinhobbesliker:

@UN:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Ah yes, its army is, as usual, way inferior to its navy.

Quite. But by 1813 and 1814 it had improved remarkably, filled with veterans of the Peninsular War. Plus, the British Army was one of the only, if not THE only, Army to have not suffered a major defeat by Napoleon.

Probably because it hadn’t fought on land yet until Waterloo? Is there any other major battle involving the British army?

Well, you had the constant rebellions and quarrels going on in India (which is actually what Wellington was doing before he got involved in Spain), you had the War of 1812, and I recall the British being expelled from Buenos Aires by the Spanish sometime in 1804 or 1805, can’t remember when specifically.

@calvinhobbesliker:

None of which were against Napoleon.

True. I had thought you just asked broadly during that time.

Spain was invaded in 1805, right?

1808. Although again, it wasn’t so much “invaded” as it was the Peninsular War basically just spontaneously erupted, as the French Army was already in Spain and Portugal.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Could you also summarize his argument as to why he thinks Napoleon died by deliberate arsenic poisoning? I looked this up and it seems that the arsenic in his hair could have come from his wallpaper

I suggest you read this article: Here It goes into how exactly he was poisoned, who poisoned him, and disproves the theories of the arsenic coming from the walls or shaving cream.

I wish I could give you the short and sweet summary, but I’m not quite sure how to do that; if you want to understand why Ben Weider, Sten Forshufvud, me, and many others believe he died of arsenic poisoning you’ll have to get the full story. It’s not too big of a read, the page just seems big because the article is just sliced up into smaller fragments of writing. Plus, I think Weider made it as short as sweet as he could to the best of his ability.

Ignore the writing in the box, that’s just the introduction of all of the articles Weider writes. Start at “…THE PURSUIT OF FACTUAL DETAIL
IS THE RELIGION OF PERFECTION”

@calvinhobbesliker:

So what to make of http://www.livescience.com/history/080212-napoleon-not-poisoned.html then?

That article does not explain why Napoleon’s arsenic levels showed highs and lows while he was on St. Helena. In fact it’s pretty vague, period. For example:

The other surprise was that there were no significant differences in arsenic levels between when Napoleon was a boy and during his final days in Saint Helena.

If that’s true, where’s the proof? The link I showed you had a graph, along with an official statement from the FBI saying that the hair samples are indeed from someone having died from deliberate arsenic poisoning.

According to the researchers, including toxicologists who participated in the study, it is evident that this was not a case of poisoning but instead the result of the constant absorption of arsenic.

Which is a blatant lie, otherwise the arsenic levels of the Emperor from 1816-1821 would have been constant, and they were not.

I really want to know more about the testing of these Italian scientists, but because that article is vague and broad in its findings I can only say that it was a pretty weak experiment compared to the amount of testing and research done by Dr. Sten Forshufvud and Ben Weider.

@13thguardsriflediv:

Napoleon was a great military leader, and certainly did want to spread the ideas of revolutionary France. Napoleon broke the back of the socalled ‘Holy Roman Empire’ and wanted to end feudalism and serfdom in Europe. Todays legal system in most of Europe is based on parts of the ‘code Napoleon’.

He had his flaws though, he was poor at diplomacy (he was used to dealing with vassals which didn’t help in his negotiating with Alexander),

I disagree; his flaw was that he was too soft on the conquered. If he had any obsession it was an obsession to have peace in Europe so he could focus on his responsibilities as a statesman. At Tilsit in 1807, he could have asked for anything from Alexander and the tsar could have denied nothing to him. To Alexander’s surprise, Napoleon renounced the constitution of a strong Poland that would have represented the ideas of the Revolution and served the strategic interests of France. Instead he made the Duchy of Warsaw, consisting only of the Austrian and Prussian parts of Poland, while the Russians kept their share.

Russia was allowed to annex the Danube provinces and take over Finland. If Napoleon was poor at diplomacy I’m pretty sure he would have been much more harsh on Russia at Tilsit.

I’m not sure where you got he was used to dealing with vassals; he constantly negotiated with other heads of state (not counting the multiple offers of peace to Britain).

he didn’t want to recognize Spanish and particularly German nationalism

Wait, what? I won’t go on again of the Peninsular War; you can read my summing up of that fateful trap in an earlier post. He didn’t recognize German nationalism? If that was so, he probably would have just annexed all German states into France and suppressed anything that was German culture. Yes, the Confederation of the Rhine strained as the military situation got worse and worse (no thanks to Napoleon’s warmongering enemies), but while many resented French rule, the majority did not, particularly German scholars such as Heinrich Heine, Schumann, and Goethe.

and was also personally ambitious for himself and liked to place cronies or brothers on thrones instead of making all republics.

I’m curious: which “cronies” are you talking about? That would be completely out of Napoleon’s character, to have “cronies” rule anywhere in his Empire. He hated dishonesty, corruption, and inefficiency.

Also, his brothers ruled quite well in the countries they ruled. Joesph Bonaparte introduced the Napoleonic Code (legal rights, freedom of practice of religion, etc.) improved the infrastructure, opened up schools, and was largely admired by the Napalese people. Even when Napoleon made him King of Spain he gave the country its first constitution and did the same thing he did in Naples, although Joseph was very reluctant to take the throne of Spain.

The old order was against him because he had overthrown them

If he overthrew them, why did he not dismantle the Austrian Empire (make Hungary independant, make Austria a Republic), annex Prussia, and just do what Hitler did and just outright absorbed their kingdoms? Napoleon took no part in the French Revolution’s political upheavals; at that time he was still second lieutenant of the artillery.

and the liberals and progressives ended up disliking him for not taking the ideas of the revolution further.

You mean the Jacobins?  :-D

Hitler’s legacy? I can’t really think of a single positive thing.

Same here.