reinstalling the system of hereditary monarchy in France with, of course, himself as emperor less than twenty years after the French Revolution had disposed of the undemocratic system and handed power to the people. This barely raised an eyebrow in France, but to her free neighbours it was a shocking example of Napoleon’s disregard for law, and helped to convince them that he must be stopped.
Flaw #2: Empires make more enemies than friends
An empire may have the world’s largest military or the most advanced weapons, but as it expands so does its list of enemies. Countries that have little in common will always unite to resist hegemony. In Europe, none of France’s neighbours could stand up to her alone. A population explosion in the decades before and after the French Revolution had swelled the ranks of fighting-age men allowing Napoleon to assemble massive armies. Combined with his tactical brilliance, they proved to be, at least initially, unstoppable. Only by forming multi-country coalitions could the rest of Europe hope to restore balance and protect their interests. Seven such coalitions formed over the years to meet Napoleon on the battlefield. They usually involved some combination of Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. The first five were crushed by the French juggernaut.
Flaw #3: The myth of invincibility
It seems that it’s a common human failing to, when sitting atop a position of ultimate power, immediately abandon the determined state of mind that brought success, and become arrogant and complacent.
Initially Napoleon chose his battles carefully, attacking only weak countries that held territory valuable to the empire. As his list of victories grew, Napoleon became sloppy and began indiscriminately picking fights with any country over any slight – real or imagined.
His first such mistake was the attempted invasion of Portugal. Unable to attack England directly after losing his fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon decided to starve the British into submission by banning all their products from Europe. But outlawing products from newly industrialized England in the 1800s would be like trying to ban all goods made in China today—not likely to succeed. A large-scale smuggling trade blossomed moving mostly through Britain’s ally, Portugal. Napoleon’s solution was to invade Portugal.
The Spanish were deeply unsatisfied with their king. Hoping to benefit from the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, they initially supported Napoleon’s decision to dethrone him in order to expedite the invasion of Portugal. The Spanish were not happy, however, when, instead of bringing freedom, Napoleon installed his brother Joseph on the throne. They rose en masse against him.
The French now found themselves fighting not only the British in Portugal, but a widespread Spanish insurgency as well. The revolt was a turning point in the history of warfare, coining the term ‘guerrilla’ (little war), that armies the world over dread to this day. The disorganized Spanish rebels occupied no less than three hundred thousand French troops making increasingly brutal and oppressive efforts to stop them. Each atrocity committed by the French in an attempt to break the will of the guerrillas only bred more of them as public opinion in Spain turned further and further away from the French cause.
The “Spanish Ulcer” as this (the Iberian) insurrection became known, dragged on for seven years. Despite their superiority the French made little headway.
Then when the Russians, who posed no threat to France, withdrew from his Continental System, Napoleon made a suicidal decision. He assembled the largest army the world had seen. Somewhere between half a million and six hundred thousand French soldiers entered Russia in June of 1812. Naturally, the Russians were reluctant to fight the army. So instead, they retreated and drew the Grande Armee deeper and deeper into Russian territory. Along the way they made sure that the land was stripped of anything of use to the invaders (the original scorched earth manoeuvre) and even torched their capital, Moscow. By the time Napoleon realized the Russians were not going to surrender, winter had set in and his troops were weak. They had no choice but to turn around and trek home across the barren wasteland. Most of Napoleon’s remaining soldiers froze to death on the return march. By some accounts as few as ten thousand soldiers survived the Russian campaign.
Without his army, Napoleon’s empire began to dissolve. He quit the remnants of the Grande Armee and returned to Paris to put down a coup being plotted there. States began breaking away from France and a sixth coalition formed. As he had by now lost a million men over the course of his empire building, and no longer had enough left to fight, Napoleon was forced by the coalition to abdicate.
The next year he returned to Paris and again seized power. A new coalition was formed – the seventh coalition that met and crushed him at Waterloo. Napoleon was exiled to the island of St. Helena to live out the remaining six years of his life, his glorious empire nothing more than a memory.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire was not the first the world had seen. There had been many before, and many after. With the exceptions of Britain, and post WWII Germany and Japan, all the countries that originally spawned empires have faded in significance since their demise. This brings an interesting question to mind: If every empire is eventually destroyed, and the cost of imperialism appears to be a prolonged period of insignificance, then why bother in the first place? The answer seems to be that it is better to rule than serve. Although empires are ultimately ruinous to their builders, they are even more damaging to their victims.
From this perspective the roots of the current conflict in Iraq come down to a simple fact: If the U.S. hadn’t grabbed Iraq’s oil, then China probably would have.
"They misunderestimated me"
George W. Bush
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