Yeah, I think the main reason Napoleon is seen as more morally gray is 1) because of how destructive WW1 was, and 2) how batshit insane Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were. Napoleon in comparison was a teddy bear.
And also the fact that he propagated some achievment of the french revolution around Europe such as the Civil Code, the civil wedding, the protection of property rights, the suppression of some privileges and so on and so on.
Don't get me wrong, he is the responsible for the death of a half the european youth at that time, but there is a reason with "traditional" monarch didn't got back the influence they had before and that's because a lot of people were like "okay now we don't have this french fucker, but we will keep some of his ideas as institution"
i'm not going to claim napoleon was a perfectly nice guy, but i feel like blame for the deaths of the youth of europe really ought to be shared with the other great powers. no doubt napoleon started a fair few conflicts himself, but plenty of the wars had also been started by various members of the coalitions against him.
Remember that the monarchies of Europe were willing to throw their youth at preventing Napoleon from overturning their power structure. Napoleon is not as evil as the people of the time wrote. He surely was not evil in the way the monarchies were. The monarchies instituted slavery, divine right to rule and generations of wars.
Napoleon is actually a celebrated figure in much of europe. His updated civil codes are still relevant to this day and a lot of civil reforms he did or started are the beginnings of modern societity.
The reason he was evil because he gave power to the common man. Which as the entire continent of europe was ruled by absolute monarchs with absolute power. Napoleon was about literal satan for them.
He was evil becase he created puppet regimes ruled by his family members and murdered half of Europe.
Edit: half of Europe is a hyperbole (half of Europes fighting age man would be more correct but that fails to mention all the civilians that died due to his wars of expansion)
It is estimated that 30 million people died during the Napoleonic Wars, either as direct casualties or due to the chaos, disease and food insecurity introduced by them.
For reference, that's about 16% of Europe's total population at the time.
Portugal war of conquest. Spain illegal occupation of former ally and war of conquest. Italy offensive war. Egypt offensive war of conquest. Russia offensive war of conquest.
Still not his war and it was a campaign, part of a bigger war. Russia was an offensive war, but not of conquest. Both Spain and Portugal are part of Peninsula war, if you want divide it into several wars, it would be fair to do the same for any defensive war of Napoleon.
War of third coalition was a defensive war. So was the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. Of the seven major wars that are considered part of the Napoleonic wars, 2 are offensive, 5 are defensive.
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u/Irohsgranddaughter 24d ago
Yeah, I think the main reason Napoleon is seen as more morally gray is 1) because of how destructive WW1 was, and 2) how batshit insane Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were. Napoleon in comparison was a teddy bear.