Glory Days: Adam Zamoyski's “Napoleon” | Hacker News Reader

Glory Days: Adam Zamoyski's “Napoleon”

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19 pointsmagda_wang18 comments

Fun fact - Napoleon is almost a national hero in Poland thanks to recreation of kinda-Poland (Warsaw Duchy) and almost defeating Russia. He's even mentioned in Polish anthem.

Adam Zamoyski being Polish might have been inspired by that to treat Napoleon more fairly (or at least differently) than English (and American) literature.

That's true. I think Poland is the only country where Napoleon is (was?) perceived as a hero - for a good reason, he was the enemy of Poland's enemies. The rest of Europe considered him to be someone more like Hitler of his times - for a good reasons too - battles that he fought were really bloody, he didn't care about his own soldiers' life, he didn't care about civilians being killed (those were more civilized times and typically soldiers fought only soldiers), as soon as he did away with Catholic Church influence on government he made slavery legal again.

Polish literature that made Napoleon to be a hero and symbol of freedom was also detached from the reality. Napoleon indeed created Duchy of Warsaw (Poland didn't exists at that time) but its king was not Polish but it was Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. Polish Legions that were part of Napoleon's army were eventually sent to Haiti to put down Haitian Revolution. So legions that were created to fight for Poland freedom and independence were used to fight other people who wanted the same for themselves (some legion soldiers even joined Haitian rebels). In addition out of 6000 soldiers sent roughly 70 percent were killed (mostly by tropical diseases), only about 400 soldiers came back. So, effectively, Polish army lost all those people doing nothing good for the sake of Poland.

> The rest of Europe considered him to be someone more like Hitler of his times

This is absolutely not true. He was revered by many idealists at the time all over Europe. Just take Germans like Goethe or Hegel. The comparison to Hitler is totally anachronistic.

> as soon as he did away with Catholic Church influence on government he made slavery legal again

Can you elaborate on that? My impression was that slavery had been abolished by the revolution which also tried to do away with religion. Napoleon era was partially a reaction against the excesses of the revolution, hence re-instating slavery and tolerating the church.

> as soon as he did away with Catholic Church influence on government he made slavery legal again

I think it's wrong to conflate the two events. Regarding the Catholic Church, removing its influence on the government was done during the Revolution and so had little influence in the post-revolution government. Tolerance toward the Church (and religion in general) was accomplished through the concordat of 1801 [0]. Regarding the re-establishment of slavery, it was done because of influence from slave-holder families, including the family of Napoleon's first wife.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism#Re-establishment_...

You're both half right. Napoleon reinstated slavery only in places that had refused to stop and just kept doing it after it was outlawed (i.e. the colonies). Slavery stayed banned in the Metropole.

Well, the Spanish at least certainly weren't fans. One of the most famous anti-war paintings is Goya's "The Third of May 1808", depicting Napoleon's soldiers executing resistance fighters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808

Yes, and on the other hand you have works like the Puccini opera Tosca where Napoleon is the harbinger of freedom which liberates Rome from tyranny and oppression of the Church. It just goes to show there were differing opinions around Europe. As another example he gave Jews full civil rights (which of course offended the church greatly), which also makes the comparison to Hitler ridiculous.

> Poland is the only country where Napoleon is (was?) perceived as a hero. The rest of Europe considered him to be someone more like Hitler of his times.

Well in France, I wouldn't say he's considered a hero, but he's well regarded, in part because of pride (fought against all Europe, conquered most of it and nearly won) and also because he had a huge influence on our institutions (legion d'honneur, code Napoléon, establishment of the prefects, baccalaureat) and for ending the bloody and troubled period of the Revolution.

For anyone who likes Adam Zamoyski, I include several very long excerpts from his other book here:

http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/poland-was-shockingly...

When I started dating a woman from Poland I decided I should learn something about the history of her country, and she recommend Adam Zamoyski to me.

I was surprised to learn about Poland. When I wrote “Poland was shockingly liberal during the 1400s” I was expressing my discovery of Poland’s experiment with democracy, which every Pole knows about but few other Westerners know about.

James Michener wrote a novel "Poland", like his other novels is a very readable slightly fictionalized account of a country/topic.

The more I learn about modern history and current politics the more I realize that modern society is greatly harmed by the worshipful study of past warmongering despots.

A lot of the seemingly irrational and idiotic decisions taken by modern western politicians can perhaps be explained by the fact that they worshiped julius ceaser, alexander the great, napoleon, etc. at young impressionable age.

So sure we should study napoleon, but lets not worship him. In my opinion Napoleon is best remembered as part of the retreat from moscow. His army just a massive mob of running, freezing, starving men tripping along a snow covered path littered with frozen corpses and gold and silver and silk that they stole and realized they couldn't carry home. The great emperor abandoning his army and running quickly away on a fast sled, because he was already facing a coup at home.

Indeed, judging by their deeds and by the amount of human suffering that they created, both Caesar and Napoleon cannot be seen as anything but Hitlers of their times.

It sounds as if you might enjoy Henry Fielding's The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great.

I respectfully disagree. Napoleon should be primarily remembered for the “Code Civil”. That stuff is a towering good deed, and dwarfs any battle won or lost. It’s reported that Napoleon himself admitted that, but I never could confirm the veracity of this quote. EDIT: typo.

Sounds quite cynical considering hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians who have died because of Napoleon's ambitions.

"because of Napoleons ambitions" - it is pretty unfair to lay the blame for the wars solely on Napoleon. The wars started because the monarchies of Europe ganged up against France after the revolution because they saw France was weakened and they wanted to prevent the ideas of the revolution to spread. Napoleon rose to prominence during these wars but just happened be be an extremely successful general. When France started winning, the propaganda of the monarchies like England painted him as a "madman" who wanted to "conquer the world", but from the viewpoint of France these were defensive wars.

Of course England at the time was fighting merciless wars of conquest all around the world in building their colonial empire. So they couldn't claim there were anything morally wrong with conquering the world. Instead their propaganda focused on the fact that Napoleon was a commoner rather than of old royal stock - something which was both offensive and scary to the old monarchies.

I understand your point of view. Of course I simplifed his reasons too much. But still, I have strong impression that he was too 'romantic' and passionate to be a winner who would remain in the history of mankind as one of the greatests rulers. His war in Russia was unbelievably daring plan, for example. Did he just want to be equal to Batu khan and others who had taken Moscow too? I would not be surprized at all. Again, it is just my personal impression, it can be far from reality of course.

It is pretty fair I think to blame it solely on him. Yes, they started as defensive wars, and yes he did a great job defending the republic. But at some point they turned into offensive wars. One can argue at what point exactly defense turned into lust for conquest but it is beyond doubt that this happened. You do not conquer most of Europe out of desire to defend yourself.

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