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A review by mburnamfink
Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
5.0
The Great Man theory of history has been out of favor for a long time, but if there was ever a case that proved the rule, it would be Napoleon. Born to minor nobility in Corsica, an insignificant and backwards island in the Mediterranean caught between French and Italian influences, Napoleon would rise through the ranks of the French Republican Army through ambition and immense military talent to Emperor of France, and then conqueror of most of Europe. Napoleon moved from triumph to triumph, until the disastrous invasion of Russia, the subsequent harrowing 1814 defensive campaign, and his final throw of the dice at Waterloo. In that interval, he redrew the map of Europe, wrote a new code of law and rational administration that swept away the last vestiges of feudalism, and laid the basis for modernity. Without Napoleon, the world would look very different.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David.
As Roberts lays out in the introduction, the sheer volume of work about Napoleon makes scholarship difficult. He estimates that one book about Napoleon's life has been published per day since Napoleon's death. In English history, Napoleon was the great enemy, the "Corsican Ogre", while for the French he was the greatest national hero since Joan of Arc. Many cotemporaneous memoirs by people close to Napoleon were ghostwritten and self-serving collections of lies. On the fortunate side, Napoleon was an inveterate letter writer, drafting between 5 and 10 letters a day, both administrative and personal, and all of those letters have recently been collected and published by the French archives. Napoleon frequently exaggerated in his letters, particularly estimate his successes on the day of a battle, but they are the truest and most accurate picture of the man.
Some of the most fascinating parts of the book concern Napoleon the man, where Roberts describes the overwrought essays of a youth trying to make sense of the French Revolution and his own place in a rapidly changing world, and an exiled and dying Napoleon on St. Helena. While supremely self-assured, Napoleon was a man of good humor, passion, immense energy and attention to detail, and real charisma, a far cry from the megalomaniac that he is often portrayed as. A second area that I found fascinating was Napoleon in Egypt, where he flirted with converting to Islam and leading an Arab army through Persia to British India.
Napoleon the general and the emperor come through less well, simply because of the scale of both subjects. With so many battles, it is hard to give them sufficient detail. Roberts captures the genius of Napoleon's corps systems and 'advantage of the central position', where he used the operational agility of his armies to combine and attack his enemies individually before he could respond, but beyond that, the battles are often bloody messes. Administration is perhaps too complex of a subject for a biography to cover in detail.
While a great man, Napoleon's primary perspective as a soldier proved his undoing. The ongoing war with England over Napoleon's Continental System of economic blockade wore away at the financial foundations of his empire. While he reached his zenith with the Treaty of Tilsit, which bound essentially all European powers but Portugal and Sicily to his cause, Napoleon was unable to sustain a peaceful alliance. Pursuit of victory through decisive battle proved elusive in Russia and Spain, and both the Prussians and the Austrians kept returning from their defeats, having learned painful lessons about victory.
Worse, Napoleon proved unable to cultivate human talent. None of his Marshals matched his own strategic brilliance. As his old friends died in battle, no one replaced them, and lack of good advice lead to overconfidence driven disasters in Spain and Russia. Foreign minister Talleyrand betrayed him in complex intrigues. His brothers, who he placed on thrones across Europe, never achieved more than mediocrity. Marshals Bernadotte and Murat both were given thrones by Napoleon, and both joined the 6th Coalition against him.
If I'm going to blow bookrace 2024 in April, no better way to do it than with a 1000 page biography.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David.
As Roberts lays out in the introduction, the sheer volume of work about Napoleon makes scholarship difficult. He estimates that one book about Napoleon's life has been published per day since Napoleon's death. In English history, Napoleon was the great enemy, the "Corsican Ogre", while for the French he was the greatest national hero since Joan of Arc. Many cotemporaneous memoirs by people close to Napoleon were ghostwritten and self-serving collections of lies. On the fortunate side, Napoleon was an inveterate letter writer, drafting between 5 and 10 letters a day, both administrative and personal, and all of those letters have recently been collected and published by the French archives. Napoleon frequently exaggerated in his letters, particularly estimate his successes on the day of a battle, but they are the truest and most accurate picture of the man.
Some of the most fascinating parts of the book concern Napoleon the man, where Roberts describes the overwrought essays of a youth trying to make sense of the French Revolution and his own place in a rapidly changing world, and an exiled and dying Napoleon on St. Helena. While supremely self-assured, Napoleon was a man of good humor, passion, immense energy and attention to detail, and real charisma, a far cry from the megalomaniac that he is often portrayed as. A second area that I found fascinating was Napoleon in Egypt, where he flirted with converting to Islam and leading an Arab army through Persia to British India.
Napoleon the general and the emperor come through less well, simply because of the scale of both subjects. With so many battles, it is hard to give them sufficient detail. Roberts captures the genius of Napoleon's corps systems and 'advantage of the central position', where he used the operational agility of his armies to combine and attack his enemies individually before he could respond, but beyond that, the battles are often bloody messes. Administration is perhaps too complex of a subject for a biography to cover in detail.
While a great man, Napoleon's primary perspective as a soldier proved his undoing. The ongoing war with England over Napoleon's Continental System of economic blockade wore away at the financial foundations of his empire. While he reached his zenith with the Treaty of Tilsit, which bound essentially all European powers but Portugal and Sicily to his cause, Napoleon was unable to sustain a peaceful alliance. Pursuit of victory through decisive battle proved elusive in Russia and Spain, and both the Prussians and the Austrians kept returning from their defeats, having learned painful lessons about victory.
Worse, Napoleon proved unable to cultivate human talent. None of his Marshals matched his own strategic brilliance. As his old friends died in battle, no one replaced them, and lack of good advice lead to overconfidence driven disasters in Spain and Russia. Foreign minister Talleyrand betrayed him in complex intrigues. His brothers, who he placed on thrones across Europe, never achieved more than mediocrity. Marshals Bernadotte and Murat both were given thrones by Napoleon, and both joined the 6th Coalition against him.
If I'm going to blow bookrace 2024 in April, no better way to do it than with a 1000 page biography.