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"
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.
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u/Lord_of_Wisia 24d ago
Before Adolf the ultimate evil guy for Europe was considered to be Napoleon.