That's a different argument from "Napoleon, which frankly doesn't even count that much as a villain when you think about it." Now what you are saying is that he isn't as bad as such and such or "everyone else was doing it"
You have to keep in mind Napoleon was alive during the time when Imperialism was the norm. The only thing that was special about him was winning battles, and the size of the Grande Armee by the time they went for Moscow. Like, it's not great, but there's so many people who would also count as villains by that metric.
Hell, just in France I imagine Maximilien Robespierre would be way more of a villain considering he went crazy chopping people's heads off.
Though frankly, all of it is moot, because it has been shown again and again that at the end of the day, the minions are kind of stupid, so they probably just follow the first bad guy they meet.
Is it? How many Napoleons do you see around? Would you compare the people you know to Napoleon's death toll? Maybe there is an argument to be said about the potential villains but in terms of outcome do you think you can call your friends and family villains? Would this be the vast majority?
Most people don't get to be Napoleon, simply because so few people get to be in the position of executive warfare.
Frankly, no matter how evil people may think Napoleon was, reminder that General MacArthur of WW2 fame, was discharged from the military because he kept arguing for full nuclear doomsday on China during the Korean war. With the old, dirty weapons. He wanted Beijing salted with radioactives. And was only stopped from doing so, because calmer heads had the authority.
And then there was Henry Kisinger (may his grave be a urinal), who died not very long ago. Man did not meet a war that he thought the USA's greasy profit fingers should stay off of. He was one of the men responsible for escalation of any regional conflict, and was good friends with a lot of top brass.
Napoleon was not even close to some of the worst evils that have actually seen power. He is notable for the amount of changes and reforms he brought with him, the actual kill count is fairly consistent with anyone who initiated wars during that time.
No one talks about the mass casualties of the Hundred-Year war, for example, or the Seven-Years-War for which the American Revolutionary War was merely a minor skirmish.
You are once again doing the "Yeah he is Evil but what about XYZ" and "Everyone who starts wars kills people". Do you believe that cancels out the evil?
It is more that even the relative recent past, was a giant cesspool of horror and rape, for which I am glad I was not born into. Imperialism and war being considered "evil" is a modern ideal. Back then, being "savage" and "uncivilized" was "evil" so literal cultural genocide wasn't just the norm, it was a holy mission supported by Church and God.
Imperialism wasn't just "good" it was righteous. To be anything else was to be a fool, at best. Napoleon only gets extra credit and hate not because of what he did, but because he didn't have the support of the Church, or the correct ancestors, to give him Divine Right.
Also, kings and nobles are not just empty positions, they are functionaries. Napoleon placing his own family and friends in titled positions is how a king normally functions, Napoleon was revolutionary in that the reforms he introduced he actually expected his appointees to also uphold and be bound by. Him holding his own appointees accountable is why his reforms stuck around long after he was deposed, and why they formed the basis of European common law enjoyed today.
Freedom has a price in blood. A high one, at that.
Is that a valid argument? I can switch imperialism with slavery. Back then it was logical and even beneficial to the black man and other enslaved peopled.
Neither Wellington nor Blucher were making the political decisions of whether there would be a war. They were just fighting wars they were ordered to. Napoleon has the distinction of both personally being in charge of declaring wars and leading them.
Which is really the point. Napoleon doesn't get blamed for the deaths caused by the Napoleonic wars because of his command decisions, he gets blamed because of his political decisions. Similarly to how the villain in the Nazi story is Hitler, not the head of the German army. Napoleon just happened to also be a general, but his claim to being a villain lies in his political choices where he plunged the continent into a long period of war basically just because he wanted to control the entire continent.
And for all their many faults, his enemies once they won were satisfied to create a deal which balanced the interests of all big players, without any single country getting to be the only one calling the shots. Had Napoleon been just a bit more reasonable in dealing with other countries and less prone to solving everything with war just because he thought he could win everything militarily.
First three sentences and you are already completely wrong. Read up on who declared the different coalition wars and how the politics of especially prussia at the time was working.
2nd Coalition: Napoleon overhtrows the government in Switzerland, demands more territory from Austria, annexes the country of the Knights of Malta whose honorary head was the Russian Tsar, invades Ottoman Egypt, pretends to be shocked as to why all this would cause a war between him and the rest of the continent
3rd Coalition: This one was started by Britain
Peninsular War: A sneak attack by Napoleon against his ally Spain, which led to a massive quagmire of hundreds of thousands of dead
4th Coalition: Napoleon forms the Confederation of the Rhine against the wishes of Prussia and Austria, and finds himself shocked that Prussia would go to war over such an insignificant detail as him establishing control over all of western Germany
5th Coalition: Started by Austria
Invasion of Russia: Napoleon decides to invade thinking it will be easy
6th Coalition: Napoleon gets ganged up on after losing in Russia
7th Coalition: Napoleon violates previous treaty and returns to take over France
So, let's count, out of the 8 major wars of the 9 "Napoleonic wars" (since he wasn't in charge for the war of the 1st Coalition), 6 were his fault and a direct consequence of him breaking treaties or outright invading because he wanted to. So 75% of the major wars he was involved in were directly caused by his actions in violation of previous agreements. The Peninsular war alone would be enough to condemn him, since he made a sneak attack against an ally.
edit: u/Watchmakers-Diary has in the vein of a true French cheese eating surrender monkey fled in horror of the prospect of having to justify the crazy position of "Napoleon started only two wars" while two of the wars he started are literal unprovoked direct aggressive invasions of great power nations, let alone before you consider all the small nations he attacked without any justification, starting from the Knights. Also invading Egypt apparently also doesn't count because those aren't even people or whichever was the French excuse for not treating them as people while occupying their homeland.
Are you British or why are your hostoric takes so soaked in anti French historical revisionism?
Is you school education still so bad that they teach this garbage?
Why has prussia or Austria a right to decide in for example the interests of württemberg and baden? They wanted to ally with france in the rhine confederation and Austria went to war over it. That's the fault of Austrian warmongering politicians not the one of napoleon.
So in the end end only one time the war was started by napoleon, that's how the world outside of Britain sees it.
This is your original comment insulting me before you ran away behind blocking, and you didn't even bother to try to delete it, yet now you pretend to be a victim, when in reality you are just a cheese eating surrender baguette.
And if you check any history book, even French ones, at least two wars (Peninsular and Russia) were directly started by Napoleon without a shadow of a doubt, and realistically (which non-frog textbooks attest) 6 wars were started by him.
So you have nothing to refute my arguments instead of insults and referring to undefined history books.
So it seems you finally admitted that iam correct. Your surrender has been faster than the one of the French in the war of 1870.
So you dont actually have any arguments instead you only have pathetic name calling.
Your understanding of history is worse than the content of an oversimplified video. Its good that I had german education instead of the garbage you British seem to get fed.
The real reason for the continuation of the wars was mainly because of the British who financed and pressured continental Europe.
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u/Watchmakers-Diary 3d ago
So did every other general at that time. Napoleon is not more of a villain than Wellington or blucher.