@UN:
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.
He essentially humiliated Prussia by keeping French forces stationed there, at Prussia’s expense (financially). Prussia had ambitions to unite Northern Germany (ie without Austria) under Prussian banner and Napoleon knew it, and wanted to prevent it.
At Tilsit in 1807, he could have asked for anything from Alexander and the tsar could have denied nothing to him.
I disagree. Napoleon greatly offended the Russian court (Alexander found himself lambasted when he returned to court in St Petersburg) and his ‘construction’ of the Duchy of Warsaw was seen as the greatest offense, since the Russians feared it would kindle hopes in ‘Russian’ Poland for unification with the Duchy of Warsaw, which Russia was dead set against, because if Polish could harbor hopes of loosening from Russia, so could other nationalities. Furthermore, he greatly underestimated Alexander who started distancing himself from Napoleon not long after Tilsit, mostly under pressure from Russia’s aristocracy, his mother and also the British.
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.
He was in no position to be harsher because he wanted Russian support for the Continental system. And he was poor at diplomacy because he generally imposed many things on the states that he directly or indirectly controlled rather than negotiate as an equal.
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).
Friedrich Karl of Baden, Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, Friedrich of Württemberg and Maximilian of Bavaria all owed the expansion of their realms to Napoleon. Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia had been humiliated at Tilsit and was only kept on by Napoleon because Alexander asked it of him. Napoleon casually moved areas and provinces from one kingdom to another. Napoleon imposed French as an official language on several areas of German states.
many resented French rule, the majority did not, particularly German scholars such as Heinrich Heine, Schumann, and Goethe.
The number of people that resented French rule in German areas increased with time. The continental system hit the Germans hardest of all those who were subject to it. Around 1810 his minister of foreign affairs, de Champagny, reported to him that a sizeable revolution was brewing in Germany, fed by hatred against France and the consequences of the continental system. This report led Napoleon to believe that he had to do something about German nationalism, and particularly the reason it kept reappearing: Russian diplomats and spies acting on Alexander’s behalf. Russia had to be dealt with. If Russia kept agitating for German nationalism and therefore indirectly against French interests, Napoleon would have none of it.
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.
I should have used the word ‘vassals’, which applies to Friedrich Karl of Baden, Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, Friedrich of Württemberg, Maximilian and Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.
You mean the Jacobins? :-D
No, people like Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stael. The latter wrote a book criticizing the French treatment of Italy. She also wrote a book on German culture which contained so much implicit criticism of Napoleon that he had the book banned.
He was a great man in history, but one with many flaws.
