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| Europe |
| Napoleon 'just like Hitler': French historian |
| 2005-11-30 |
| A French author has taken a rare shot at one of the country's biggest heroes by casting Napoleon Bonaparte as a genocidal dictator and inspiration for Adolf Hitler in an incendiary new book. "One hundred and forty years before the Holocaust, a dictator, hoping to rule the world, did not hesitate to crush part of humanity under his boot," Claude Ribbe wrote in 'The Crime of Napoleon', which goes on sale Thursday. As France prepares on Friday to mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Austerlitz -- considered the emperor's military masterpiece -- Ribbe's book lists a string of atrocities allegedly carried out under his rule. A black academic who sits on a government panel on human rights, Ribbe accuses the emperor of "exterminating" part of the black population of France's colonial islands and of introducing a system of racial segregation. On the French island colony of Haiti, then known as Saint Domingue, Ribbe claims that Napoleon's troops launched a "vast operation of ethnic cleansing" in 1802, to stamp out a slave revolt. Relying on written accounts from some officers in the Napoleonic armies, Ribbe writes that French troops used sulphur dioxide to suffocate slaves held in ships' holds and conducted wide-scale killings. The troops were under orders to kill all blacks aged over 12, he writes. "It is no surprise that he (Napoleon) served as a model for Mussolini, who wrote a play in his glory, or to Hitler, who saluted him with a 'Heil Napoleon' at the Invalides (in Paris) on June 28, 1940," writes the historian. "All the facts contained (in the book) are known to historians, but are willfully overlooked," Ribbe charges in his introduction.Joined by a number of associations from France's overseas territories, Ribbe has been campaigning to bring such episodes to public attention, as France prepares to pay tribute to its legendary emperor. The groups have called for a march on Saturday in protest at the emperor's "glorification" and the "historical revisionism" surrounding his rule. "We cannot allow, in a supposedly law-abiding country, for history to be steered as it was done under the Soviet Union," they said in a joint statement. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #16 gromgoru - 1) Bush = Hitler 2) Bush -> Global Warming 3) Global Warming -> Hurricane Katrina 4) Hurricane Katrina -> Broken New Orleans levees 5) Broken New Orleans Levees -> Flooding of New Orleans 6) Napolean = Hitler therefore ... Napolean -> Flooding of New Orleans |
| Posted by: DMFD 2005-11-30 23:51 |
| #15 The Mongols still revere Ghengis, and I don't see why they shouldn't. If I were French, I would fete Napoleon, though he is to great military leaders in history what the Buffalo Bills are to the Super Bowl - a memorable dynasty but he lost the championship twice. The legacy of their Revolution is all convoluted and contradictory anyway. Democracy was still a novel concept at the time (at least the modern, non-ancient Greco Roman version - the U.S. was only 2 decades old). While the ideas and ideals of our modern world were born in the previous century, most of the World still revolved around empire, conquest, slavery, hereditary monarchy, piracy, etc. Napoleon should be judged by the standards of his time. It is anachronistic to judge him by today's mores. To do so is as silly as criticizing Tamerlane for failing to follow the Geneva Convention in his campaigns against Persia. |
| Posted by: Monsieur Moonbat 2005-11-30 21:37 |
| #14 Two shrinks were walking down the street when they were approached by third shrink. The third shrink said "Hi." As he passed, the first shrink said to the other, "I wonder what he meant by that?" |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-11-30 21:14 |
| #13 JFM, explain what you mean? |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-11-30 18:59 |
| #12 JMF, fighting brutally against partisans is somewhat different than rounding up the Jews and Gypsies and sending them to camps. The partisans were hunted down because they were partisans fighting his occupation (the NAZIs did that as well) not because they were of a specific ethnic group). |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-11-30 17:52 |
| #11 Mr Citizen Please avoid speaking of what you don't know. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-11-30 17:44 |
| #10 More recently than Napoleon, the Vichy frence jumped in bed with Adolph Schicklegrupper (Hitler) during WWII. |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-11-30 14:33 |
| #9 I don't think Napolean did anything vile to specific ethnic groups Well, you should look at some Goya paintings for what happenned in Spain. Not only the universally known "3 de Mayo" where people are being shot after the crushing of Madrid's insurrection but also some hair-raising drawings. On teh other side this was aguerrilla war where the troops were harrassed by irregulars who didn't respect the usual rules of war (Goya has also some paintings about what happenned to those French who fell in guerrillero's hands). Now in regular battles Napoleon was quite chivalrous with defeated foes. For instance after his last victory at Ligny he had wounded of both sides treated in the same hospital and usually visited them (of both sides again). However a couple days, after Waterloo, Prussians (1) under the command of Geneisenau evacuated the Allied wounded from that hospital and set it fire resulting in the French wounded being burned alive. (1) Many testimonies both French and British tell about Prussian soldiers being very dangerous for women both in enemy country or in allied country. About their behaviour in battle Napoleon had little respect for them (he counted two or three prussians for a French soldier, and only one British for a French :-) ). After all both him and his generals have beated them even when severely outnumbered. At Ligny, he beat them despite being (slightly) outnumbered and Prussians fortified. Hoverever disobedience by some of his subordinates prevented him of anihilating the Prussian army who would come haunting him at Waterloo. But this was Napoleon's main weakness: selecting people for high positions: the good generals had got their positions during the Republic. The people, elevayted by him were uniformly very brave but with limited intellects (eg Ney, the main culprit of Waterloo). |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-11-30 12:25 |
| #8 What do they expect, that's the way you had to get things done in them days. Why doesn't france establish a "Fuck Napoleon" day if they're so worried about it. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-11-30 12:18 |
| #7 Seafarious: Napoleon ranks just behind Jesus as the most biographied man in human history. There are literally entire libraries devoted to just books about Napoleon. In the beginning, Napoleon was villified far more than Hitler has been, this hatred lasting almost all the way to the time of the rise of Hitler. Finally, starting in the 1980s, France began a systematic reconstruction of Napoleon as a noble French leader. Students are now taught that he deserves a place in the pantheon of French leaders beside DeGaulle, etc. Ironically, the same fate probably awaits Hitler in Germany, and probably sooner. He will have lost immediacy, and his actions will be compared with other German leaders. Most people will be of an attitude of "Why should I care more about what my great grandfather did than what my great-great-great grandfather did?" |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-30 11:48 |
| #6 Since things that equal to the same are equal to each other, does this means that Bush = Napoleon? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2005-11-30 11:48 |
| #5 60 years on, Hitler still sells a lot of books. Go figure. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-11-30 11:32 |
| #4 Great painting. There were many similarities, but then again Napoleon shared similarities with many authoritarian dictators especially those that challenge the entire world at once. I don't think Napolean did anything vile to specific ethnic groups or to the French people (beyond conscription and constant war for 20 years) the way Hitler did so the comparison falls apart. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-11-30 11:23 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-11-30 11:13 |
| #2 On the topic of France... This link requires registration link but here is the short description: Apparently France is positioning itself to gain control of thousands of square miles of Atlantic Ocean seabed beyond Canada's current 200-mile (320-kilometre) limit that include possible oil and gas reserves located south of the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, which are off the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, writes Dann Rogers. The proposed area of French control would require a globally unprecedented "leapfrog" over Canadian waters and set up a struggle between the French islands, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia over a planned 150-mile (240-kilometre) expansion of offshore economic zones under new provisions of the UN convention governing the Law of the Sea. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-11-30 11:02 |
| #1 Which still survives today? The Code Napoleon or the Nuremburg Laws? Of course the behavior of Haitians towards other Haitians in history and contemporary society has been a model of respect of human rights. /sarcasm off |
| Posted by: Gravilet Chise6947 2005-11-30 10:22 |