Napoleon Bonaparte, Hero?, Role Model???

Probably neither, maybe a hero in the classical sense of ancient literature.  However, like all humans there are some remarkable traits to be emulated and some to be avoided.  As a soldier of his time, late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, he was clearly without peer.  The subtitle of David Chandler’s definitive work The Campaigns of Napoleon is The Mind and the Method of History’s Greatest Soldier.(1966jPerhaps perhaps the most remarkable feature of Napoleon is his leadership capability particularly in his element, the military sphere.  The ability to thrive while in command is a fascinating topic.  What makes one person able to lead a group of people to do extraordinary things and another with the same resources an abject failure?  Even the Emperors detractors admit he had the magic touch.  Here are a sample of quotes:

David Chandler, British Military historian and critic of Napoleon: “He was undoubtedly one of the most complex and gifted humans ever to grace-or bedevil- this planet.”  “Even the war hardened General Vandamme admitted his helplessness when confronted by the Emperor:’So it is that I, who fear neither God nor Devil am ready to tremble like a child when I approach him.’  This hypnotic fascination undoubtedly accounts in large measure for the mastery he exited over soldiers of all grades.”

Another critic of Napoleon,  Adam Zamoyski, Moscow 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March 2004
“ Napoleon was in large measure driven by nothing more complicated than the lust for power and domination over others.”  Yet later in the same book, “ During a review shortly before the campaign, Napoleon stepped in front of Lieutenant Calosso, a Piedmontese serving in the 24th Chasseurs a Cheval, and said a few words to him.  ‘Before that, I admired Napoleon as the whole army admired him’, he wrote. ‘From that day on, I devoted my life to him with a fanaticism which time has not weakened.  I only had one regret, which was that I only had one life to place at his service.’  Such a level of devotion was by no means rare, and transcended nationality.”

Vincent J Esposito, in the introduction to A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars  1964
“He was a man for whom other men died willingly, whom the helpless dying cheered as he rode past; a man who knew the secrets of his soldiers hearts, who could carry his soldiers with him despite the worst of prevailing conditions or future hopes.  By the standards of his times, he took special care for the health of his troops, rewarded generously, forgave faults, shared hardships and danger, and dealt justly and patiently with the men in the ranks; yet, he could become heartless when necessary.  The Emperor was a soldier’s soldier, with the full knowledge of every facet of military science and the art of war.”

Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (2014)
“He convinced his followers they were taking part in an adventure, a pageant, an experiment and a story whose sheer splendour would draw the attention of posterity for centuries. He was able to impart to ordinary people the sense that their lives—and, if necessary, their deaths in battle—mattered in the context of great events. They too could make history. It is untrue that he cared nothing for his men and was careless with their lives. He lost a friend in almost every major battle, and his letters to Josephine and Marie Louise make it clear that these deaths, and those of his soldiers, affected him. Yet he could not allow that to deflect him from his main purpose of pursuing victory, and he would not have been able to function as a general if it had, any more than Ulysses Grant or George Patton could have done.”

Attributed to the writer Hendrik Willem van Loon author of The History Of Mankind which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922, “Here I am sitting at a comfortable table loaded heavily with books, with one eye on my typewriter and the other on Licorice the cat, who has a great fondness for carbon paper, and I am telling you that the Emperor Napoleon was a most contemptible person.  But should I happen to look out the window, down upon Seventh Avenue, and should the endless procession of trucks and carts come to a sudden halt, and should I hear the sound of the heavy drums and see the little man on his white horse, in his old and much worn green uniform, then I don’t know, but I’m afraid that I would leave my books and my kitten and my home and everything else to follow him wherever he cared to lead.  My own grandfather did this and Heaven knows he was not born to be a hero.”