Napoleon- Hero or Tyrant?

Title is pretty self explanatory. I wrote a page on this for school, and I'm turning it in tomorrow. I chose hero. What do you think? 999 Days to vote! :lol:

Thats a choice now...

Bastard!

Kidding, I picked coward :lol:

Why is he a coward?

Noted...
But wasn't he ordered back to France?

Shit, we're in a deadlock, come on comrades, vote him as a coward

No he didn't. He was ordered back to France so he did his best to wrap things up in Egypt (he couldn't, obviously) and left it in command of a capable general. It is not Napoleon's fault the army wasn't strong enough, nor is it that France needed him home.

Not sure, tho he did leave his "brothers" behind.[/quote:1a9gqaq8]
He was ordered back to France.


Anyway, people who say Napoleon was an evil tyrant are just idiots. Napoleon did not declare war on anybody but Russia and Spain and in the case with Russia, they were about to attack him anyway. When most of Europe declares war on you would you just sit there and wait for the combined onslaught, or attack them while they are disorganized? The best defense is a good offense. Also, it is amazing what he did in Italy. He basically turned a starving ragtag force into an army that virtually annihilated Austria in Italy. Not to mention how well he used artillery.

Greedy hypocrite. Smart motherfucker, though. I'm drawn on the subject. Either way, he did declare himself an emperor and so I'm just going to declare him a tyrant.

I consider him a hero until about 1808. After that he let his subordinates do the work until the Russian Campaign. At this point he was a tyrant. He didn't even have a good campaign again until 1814. I may have my opinion based on his military skill alone, but the best proof he became a tyrant is his need to escape from Elba to rule France again.

It wasn't because of his greed that he came back to France, it was because of all the things alone, he wouldn't let the revolution go to a waste, so he came back to try and take away the monarchs from France, however this wasn't needed anymore because almost all of the countries in western Europe had come kind of constitution now, so no more absolutism. You may be asking though, if he went to take out absolutism from Europe, why he became Emperor? Well that's easy, he was elected the Consul of France by popular vote, then later he declared himself Emperor so he could actually take control of the military part and start invading the absolutist countries, he only failed to take away absolutism in Russia.

You talk about him letting the revolution go to waste, but I say he wasted the revolution himself by proclaiming himself Emperor. Like I said, he was a hypocritical guy. If he was absolute when it came to the ideas of the revolution he wouldn't have gone to that stage. Even if he wasn't the ruler, there wasn't anything stopping from him from staying a general. Plus, he installed Joseph Bonaparte in Spain, so he was just establishing his family more.

He was spreading the Revolution's ideals, installing the Civil Code made by him, installing the constitution and abolishing Absolutism in every country he went, he was Emperor, but the same people that hated Absolutism, worshiped him, because the people chose him to be Consul and later Emperor, most of the Absolute kings weren't chosen by the people, they were there by blood, which is bullcrap. About Spain I agree he didn't have the right to put his brother in power there, but it was more of a strategical thing, he wanted to invade Spain because he didn't want Portugal to continue trading with Britain, so by invading Spain he could simply walk past by spanish lands, same thing with Russia.

While he may have been popular that doesn't exempt him from his own rules. I don't see why everyone agrees with the whole Manifest Democracy ideal, especially when he was killing countless to only install his own blood to the throne. Who's to say that it wasn't Napoleon's ambition after all to replace the monarchy with his own family? When people get into such positions of power this is normally the result. I agree that it was a strategic move more than anything but I still don't think putting his brother in such a position was a good idea.

He wasn't killing people to install his family to the throne, his brother was actually the one of the few people he could trust in Europe to not invade him, he was being attacked according to the Declaration of Pillnitz, he was basically de-throning every monarch he could and put up his Civil Code, allowing freedom and equality to everybody, serfs were still common in Germany, Italy and Poland, so he was kind of a liberator, plus he invaded Russia, Spain and Portugal only because of the English, who couldn't stand up to France being a threat to their economy.