Napoleon sayings

http://www.malekzadeh.com/napoleon/napoleonsayings.html

On Nature
To absorb, to emit, to form new combinations---this is life.
The law, that is what makes men stay honest. Morality for the upper classes, the gollows for the rabbles.
I was born and made for work. I have recognised the limits of my eyesight and of my legs, but never the limits of my working power.
Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard. When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another. Do I wish to sleep, I simply close all the drawers and then I am - asleep.
I have a taste for founding, not for owning.
Imagination rules the world.
Europe is a molehill. All great empires and revolutions have been on the Orient; six hundred millions live there.
I have come to realize that men are not born to be free.
My motto has always been: A career open to all talents, without distinctions of birth.
Democracy, if it is reasonable, limits itself to giving everyone an equal opportunity to compete and to obtain.
Man is entitled by birthright to a share of the earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence.
Has a man the right to kill himself? Yes, if his death harms no one and if life is an evil to him.
When is life an evil? When it offers a man nothing but suffering and pain.

On the Art of Ruling      (Top)Ture politics is merely the calculus of combinations and of chances.
The policies of all powers are inherent in their geography.
In political administration, no problem is ever simple. It can never be reduced to the question whether a certain measure is good or not.
Passions change, politics are immutable.
Great men are never cruel without necessity.
Bloodletting is among the ingredients of political medicine.
In war as in politics, no evil, even if it is permissible under the rules, is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.
If fifty thousand men were to die for the good of the State, I certainly would weep for them, but political necessity comes before everything else.
Do not talk to me of goodness, of abstract justice, of nature law. Necessity is the highest law, public welfare is the highest justice.
Governments keep their promises only when they are forced or when it is to their advantage to do so.
A true master of politics is able to calculate, down to the smallest fration, the advantages to which he may put his very faults.
They think I am stern, even hardhearted. So much the better-this makes it unnecessary for me to justify my reputation. My firmness is taken for callousness. I shall not complain, since this notion is responsible for the good order that is prevailing, so that there is nothing that needs to be repressed. I am not moved by the tears of a duchess, but the sufferings of the people touch me.
Remember that a man, a true man, never hates. His rages and his bad moods never last beyond the present moment-like electric shocks. A man made for public life and authority never takes account of personalities; he only takes account of things, of their weight and their conseqences.
The strong are good, only the weak are wicked.
Forces is the law of animals, men are ruled by conviction.
A magistrate is not a father; he must be just and severe. Only tyrants are fathers.
There is no strength without justice.
When it is said of a ruler that he is a good king, his reign is a failure.
Without doubt the first duty of a ruler is to do what the people wants. But what the people wants is almost never the same as what the people says. Its will and needs ought to be found not so much in the people's mouth as in the ruler's heart.
Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses. The first method is that of a schemer and leads only to mediocre results; the other method is the path of genius and changes the face of the world.
The greatest immorality is to take on a job one does not know.
It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.
A legislator must know how to take advantage of even the defects of those he wants to govern.
The art consists in making others work rather than in wearing oneself out.
To negotiate is not to do as one likes.
It is an ambassador's duty to stand up for his nation's foreign policy in any era and under any government whatsoever.
Ambassadors are, in the full meaning of the term, titled spies.
International incidents must not be allowed to shape foreign policy, foreign policy must shape the incidents.
Friendship is only a word, I care for nobody.
I would kiss a man's arse if I needed him.
Napoleon's knack of getting to the bottom of a problem at once was outstanding. He always asked two questoins: 1. Is that accurate? 2. Is it useful?
Metterich comes close to being a statesman: he lies very well.
On Talleyrand: One may say that this man is immorality personified. I have never known a being more profoundly immoral.
On Fouche: Fouche needed intrigue like food. He intrigued always, everywhere, every way, with everybody. One never came across anything without being sure that he had a hand in it. His only occupation was to run after something; he had the mania of wanting to be everything. Always in everybody's shoes.
So you think the police foresees and knows everything. The police invents more than it discovers.
Good and decent people must be protected and persuaded by gentle means, but the rabble must be led by terror.
Several slaves carrying heavy crates crossed our path. Mrs. Balcombe told them angrily to make room, when Napoleon intervened by saying: Respect for the burden, Madam.
Since the people eats every day, it should be allowed to work every day.
Every begar shall be arrested. But to arrest a beggar merely in order to put him in jail would be barbarous and absurd. He should be arrested for the sole purpose of teaching him how to earn a living by his work.On Leadership      (Top)Military science consists in first calculating all the possibilities accurately and then in making an almost mathematically exact allowance for accident. It is on this point that one must make no mistakes; a decimal more or less may alter everything. Now, this apportioning of knowledge and accident can take place only in the head of a genius, for without it there can be no creation- and surely the greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existance to the nonexistance. Accident thus always remains a mystery to mediocre minds and becomes reality for superior men.
War consists of nothing but accidents and that a commander, though he must always adjust himself to general principles, should never overlook anything that might enable him to exploit these accidents. The vulgar would call this luck, but in fact it is the characteristic of genius.
On Julius Caesar: Caesar's priciples were the same as Alexander's and Hannibal's: to keep his forces united; to be vulnerable at no point, to strike speedily at critical points; to rely on moral factors, such as his reputation and the fear he inspired, as well as political means in order to insure the loyalty of his allies and the submissiveness of the conquered nations; to make use of every possible opportunity of increasing his chances of victory on the battlefield and, in order to accomplish this, to unite all his troops. He was a man whose genius and boldness were equally great.
On Frederick the Great: Everything proves that Frederick could not have withstood France, Austria, and Russia throughout a campaign if these powers had cooperated in good faith, nor could he have conducted two campaigns against Austria and Russia if the Russian cabinet had allowed its armies to occupy winter quarters in the theater of operations. Thus the miraculous element in the Seven Years War evaporates.
The battle of Leuthen is a masterpiece of operations, maneuvers and resolution. By itself,it would be enough to immortalize Frederick and to place him among the greatest generals.
What distinguishes Frederick most is not the cleverness of his moves but his boldness.

On Judgement of Men      (Top)The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it - the precise time when it is too late.
Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
If you wish to study men, learn how far their patience can stretch.
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.
I start out by believing the worst.
I defy anyone to trick me. Men would have to be exceptional rascals to be as bad as I assume them to be.
When Napoleon was put out that he considered mankind most perfidious, he answered: I am not paid for finding it better.
Machiavelli is right: one always must live with one's friends with the idea that they may turn into one's enemies. He should have said, with everyone.
Be successful! I judge men only by the results of their actions.
All being said, I like only those people who are useful to me, and only so long as they useful.
I always have loved to analyze, and if I ever fell seriously in love I would take my love apart piece by piece.
Men of genius are meteors destined to be consumed in lighting up their century.
The greater one is, the less will he must have. He depends on events and circumstances.
He who fears to lose his reputation is sure to lose it.
When asked why, in 1797, he stopped at Leoben instead of marching on to Vienna, Napoleon replied: because I was playing at Twenty-One, and I held at twenty.
Another error: you are told "the face is the mirror of the soul." The truth is that men are very difficult to know and that to avoid mistakes, they must be judged only by their actions and, by the action of the present moment, and only for that moment.

Napoleon in Russian Thought

http://www.centerstage.org/crimeandpunishment/Digital-Dramaturgy/Napoleon.aspx

Despite Russia’s own history with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) in the Russian invasion of 1812, Russians came to view Napoleon with a strange sort of admiration and reverence. In much the same way as Western Europe at the time, Russians saw Napoleon as a symbol: an extraordinary modern man who overstepped boundaries and moral law to change history on his own terms. Balzac, a writer who influenced Dostoevsky enormously, framed a situation Dostoevsky later adapted for Crime and Punishment in his novel Le Père Goriot (1835). Its hero, Rastignac, asks a friend, a poor medical intern, whether, if his own enrichment and the fulfillment of all his desires required only the death of a nameless peasant in China, he would condone the innocent man’s death. His friend answers that “to act in this way… you have to be Alexander [the Great],” and that even “Napoleon did not eat his dinner twice, and could not have any more mistresses than a medical intern…. I decide to let the Chinaman live.” As a historical example or type, Napoleon surfaces in the writing of Gogol, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and Pushkin. In his verse novel Eugene Onegin (1825-1832), Pushkin cites the influence of Napoleon in Russian thought: “We all now pose as Napoleons/ Millions of two-legged creatures/ For us are the instrument of one.” Scholar Robert L. Jackson, in his article “Napoleon in Russian Literature,” (attached) writes, “indifference to people, egoistic insensibility to anything opposing his will, the complete subordination of means to ends, and the passion for power characterized Napoleon.” As a representative, however extreme, of a generation of radical youth beginning to embrace the egoistic branch of Nihilism, Napoleon (a proto-Nietzschean Superman) was a natural figure for Raskolnikov to seize onto.

“We all now pose as Napoleons--
Millions of two-legged creatures
For us are the instrument of one.”
--Eugene Onegin, by Pushkin

France History - First French Empire

http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/france-history/first-french-empire.htm 

 The First French Empire, commonly known as the French Empire, the Napoleonic Empire or simply as The Empire, covers the period of the domination of France and of much of continental Europe by Napoleon I of France. Constitutionally, it refers to the period of 1804 to 1814, from the Consulate to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in the history of the French state, with a coda in the Hundred Days of 1815.

The First French Empire stands distinct from its imitator and would-be successor the Second French Empire of Napoleon III (1852-1870).

Bonaparte's march to empire began with the Constitution of the year X (August 1802). Having become "First Consul", he attracted more power and gravitated towards imperial status, gathering support on the way for his internal rebuilding of France and its institutions. He gradually dampened opposition and Republican enthusiasm, using exile, systematic bureacratic oppression and constitutional means. The decision of the Senate on May 18, 1804, giving him the title of emperor, was the counterblast to the dread he had excited.

Never did a harder master ordain more imperiously, nor understand better how to command obedience. "This was because," as Goethe said, "under his orders men were sure of accomplishing their ends. That is why they rallied round him, as one to inspire them with that kind of certainty."

Indeed no man previously ever concentrated authority to such a point, nor showed mental abilities at all comparable to his: an extraordinary power of work, prodigious memory for details and fine judgment in their selection; together with a luminous decision and a simple and rapid conception, all placed at the disposal of a sovereign will. 

No head of the state gave expression more imperiously than this Corsican to the popular passions of the French of that day: abhorrence for the emigrant nobility, fear of the ancien régime, dislike of foreigners, hatred of England, an appetite for conquest evoked by revolutionary propaganda, and the love of glory.   In this Napoleon was a soldier of the people: because of this he judged and ruled his contemporaries. Having seen their actions in the stormy hours of the French Revolution, he despised them and looked upon them as incapable of disinterested conduct, conceited, and obsessed by the notion of equality. Hence his colossal egoism, his habitual disregard of others, his jealous passion for power, his impatience of all contradiction, his vain untruthful boasting, his unbridled self-sufficiency and lack of moderation - passions which were gradually to cloud his clear faculty of reasoning. 

His genius, assisted by the impoverishment of two generations, was like the oak which admits beneath its shade none but the smallest of saplings. With the exception of Talleyrand, after 1808 he would have about him only mediocre people, without initiative, prostrate at the feet of the giant: his tribe of paltry, rapacious and embarrassing Corsicans; his admirably subservient generals; his selfish ministers, docile agents, apprehensive of the future, who for fourteen long years felt a prognostication of defeat and discounted the inevitable catastrophe.

So First Empire France had no internal history outside the plans and transformations to which Napoleon subjected the institutions of the Consulate, and outside the after-effects of his wars. Well knowing that his fortunes rested on the delighted acquiescence of France, Napoleon expected to continue indefinitely fashioning public opinion according to his pleasure. 

To his contempt for men he added that of all ideas which might put a bridle on his ambition; and to guard against them, he inaugurated the "Golden Age" of the police that he might tame every moral force to his hand. Being essentially a man of order, he loathed, as he said, all demagogic action, Jacobinism and visions of liberty, which he desired only for himself. To make his will predominant, he stifled or did violence to that of others, through his bishops, his gendarmes, his university, his press, his catechism. 

Nourished like Frederick II and Catherine the Great in 18th century maxims, he would not allow any of that ideology to filter through into his rough but regular ordering of mankind. Thus the whole political system, being summed up in the emperor, was bound to share his fall.Although an enemy of idealogues, Napoleon followed grandiose visions in his foreign policy. A condottiere of the Renaissance living in the 19th century, he used France, and all those nations annexed or attracted by the Revolution, to resuscitate the Roman conception of the idea of Empire for personal benefit. On the other hand, he was enslaved by the history and aggressive idealism of the National Convention, and of the republican propaganda under the Directory; they guided him quite as much as he guided them.    

Hence the immoderate extension given to French activity by his classical Latin spirit; hence also his conquests, leading on from one to another, and instead of being mutually helpful interfering with each other; hence, finally, his not entirely coherent policy, interrupted by hesitation and counter-attractions. 

This explains the retention of Italy, imposed on the Directory from 1796 onward, followed by his treatment of Venice, the foundation of the Cisalpine Republic - a foretaste of future annexations - the restoration of that republic after his return from Egypt, and in view of his as yet inchoate designs, the postponed solution of the Italian problem which the treaty of Lunéville had raised.

The Battle of Marengo (June 14, 1800 inaugurated the political idea which was to continue its development until Napoleon's Moscow campaign. Napoleon dreamed as yet only of keeping the duchy of Milan, setting aside Austria, and preparing some new enterprise in the East or in Egypt. The peace of Amiens, which cost him Egypt, could only seem to him a temporary truce; whilst he was gradually extending his authority in Italy, the cradle of his race, by the union of Piedmont, and by his tentative plans regarding Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples. 

He wanted to make this his Cisalpine Gaul, laying siege to the Roman state on every hand, and preparing in the Concordat for the moral and material servitude of the pope. When he recognised his error in having raised the papacy from decadence by restoring its power over the churches, he tried in vain to correct it by the Articles Organiques ? wanting, like Charlemagne, to be the legal protector of the pope, and eventually master of the Church. 

To conceal his plan he aroused French colonial aspirations against England, and also the memory of the spoliations of 1763, exasperating English jealousy of France, whose borders now extended to the Rhine, and laying hands on Hanover, Hamburg and Cuxhaven.By the "Recess" of 1803, which brought to his side Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, he followed up the overwhelming tide of revolutionary ideas in Germany, to stem which Pitt, back in power, appealed once more to an Anglo-Austro-Russian coalition against this new Charlemagne, who was trying to renew the old Holy Roman Empire, who was mastering France, Italy and Germany; who finally on December 2, 1804 placed the imperial crown upon his head, after receiving the iron crown of the Lombard kings, and made Pope Pius VII consecrate him in Notre-Dame de Paris.

After this, in four campaigns, the Emperor transformed his Carolingian feudal and federal empire into one modelled on the Roman empire. The memories of imperial Rome were for a third time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne, to modify the historical evolution of France. Though the vague plan for an invasion of England fell to the ground, the Battle of Ulm and the Battle of Austerlitz obliterated Trafalgar, and the camp at Boulogne put the best military resources he had ever commanded at Napoleon's disposal.

In the first of these campaigns Bonaparte swept away the remnants of the old Roman-Germanic empire, and out of its shattered fragments created in southern Germany the vassal states of Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt and Saxony, which he attached to France under the name of the Confederation of the Rhine; but the treaty of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) gave France nothing but the danger of a more centralised and less docile Germany. 

On the other hand, Napoleon's creation of the kingdom of Italy, his annexation of Venetia and her ancient Adriatic empire - wiping out the humiliation of 1797 - and the occupation of Ancona, marked a new stage in his progress towards his Roman Empire. His good fortune soon led him from conquest to spoliation, and he complicated his master-idea of the grand empire by his Family Compact; the clan of the Bonapartes invaded European monarchies, wedding with princesses of blood-royal, and adding kingdom to kingdom. 

Joseph Bonaparte replaced the dispossessed Bourbons at Naples; Louis Bonaparte was installed on the throne of the newly formed kingdom of Holland carved out of the Dutch Batavian Republic; Joachim Murat became grand-duke of Berg, Jerome Bonaparte son-in-law to the king of Württemberg, and Eugène de Beauharnais to the king of Bavaria; while Stéphanie de Beauharnais married the son of the grand-duke of Baden.   

Meeting with less and less resistance, Napoleon went still further and would tolerate no neutral power. On August 6, 1806 he forced the Habsburgs, left with only the crown of Austria, to abdicate their Roman-Germanic title of emperor. Prussia alone remained outside the Confederation of the Rhine, of which Napoleon was Protector, and to further her decision he offered her English Hanover. 

In a second campaign he destroyed at Jena both the army and the state of Frederick William III of Prussia, who could not make up his mind between the Napoleonic treaty of Schönbrunn and Russia's counter-proposal at Potsdam (October 14, 1806). 

The butchery at Eylau and the vengeance taken at Friedland (June 14, 1807) finally ruined Frederick the Great's work, and obliged Russia, the ally of England and Prussia, to allow the latter to be despoiled, and to join Napoleon against the maritime tyranny of the former.

After the Treaties of Tilsit, however (July 1807), instead of trying to reconcile Europe to his grandeur, Napoleon had but one thought: to make use of his success to destroy England and complete his Italian dominion. It was from Berlin, on November 21, 1806, that he had dated the first decree of a continental blockade, a monstrous conception intended to paralyze his inveterate rival, but which on the contrary caused his own fall by its immoderate extension of the Empire. 

To the coalition of the northern powers he added the league of the Baltic and Mediterranean ports, and to the bombardment of Copenhagen by an English fleet he responded by a second decree of blockade, dated from Milan on December 17, 1807.

But the application of the Concordat and the taking of Naples led to the first of those struggles with the pope in which were formulated two antagonistic doctrines: Napoleon declaring himself Roman emperor, and Pius VII renewing the theocratic affirmations of Pope Gregory VII. The Emperor's Roman ambition was made more and more plainly visible by the occupation of the kingdom of Naples and of the Marches, and by the entry of Miollis into Rome; while Junot invaded Portugal, Radet laid hands on the pope himself, and Joachim Murat took possession of formerly Roman Spain, whither Joseph Bonaparte transferred afterwards.But Napoleon little knew the flame he was kindling. No more far-seeing than the Directory or the men of the year III, he thought that, with energy and execution, he might succeed in the Peninsula as he had succeeded in Italy in 1796 and 1797, in Egypt, and in Hesse, and that he might cut into Spanish granite as into Italian mosaic or "that big cake, Germany". 

He stumbled unawares upon the revolt of a proud national spirit, evolved through ten historic centuries; and the trap of Bayonne, together with the enthroning of Joseph Bonaparte, made the contemptible prince of the Asturias the elect of popular sentiment, the representative of religion and country.

Napoleon thought he had Spain within his grasp, and now suddenly everything started slipping from him. The Peninsula became the grave of whole armies and a battlefield against England. Dupont capitulated at Bailen into the hands of Castaños, and Junot at Cintra to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington; while Europe trembled at this first check to the hitherto invincible imperial armies. To reduce Spanish resistance Napoleon had in his turn to come to terms with the tsar Alexander I of Russia at Erfurt; so that, abandoning his designs in the East, he could maka the Grand Army evacuate Prussia and return in force to Madrid.

Thus Spain swallowed up the soldiers who were wanted for Napoleon's other fields of battle, and they had to be replaced by forced levies. Europe had only to wait, and he would eventually be found disarmed in face of a last coalition; but Spanish heroism infected Austria, and showed the force of national resistance. The provocations of Talleyrand and England strengthened the illusion: Why should not the Austrians emulate the Spaniards? The campaign of 1809, however, was but a pale copy of the Spanish insurrection.    

After a short and decisive action in Bavaria, Napoleon opened up the road to Vienna for a second time; and after the two days' battle at Essling, the stubborn fight at Wagram, the failure of a patriotic insurrection in northern Germany and of the English expedition against Antwerp, the treaty of Vienna (14 December 1809), with the annexation of the Illyrian provinces, completed the colossal Empire. Napoleon profited, in fact, by this campaign which had been planned for his overthrow.The pope was deported to Savona beneath the eyes of indifferent Europe, and his domains were incorporated in the Empire; the senate's decision on 17 February 1810 created the title of king of Rome, and made Rome the capital of Italy. The pope banished, it was now desirable to send away those to whom Italy had been more or less promised. 

Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepson, was transferred to Frankfurt, and Murat carefully watched until the time should come to take him to Russia and instal him as king of Poland. Between 1810 and 1812 Napoleon's divorce of Josephine, and his marriage with Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, followed by the birth of the king of Rome, shed a brilliant light upon his future policy. 

He renounced a federation in which his brothers were not sufficiently docile; he gradually withdrew power (sociology) from them; he concentrated all his affection and ambition on the son who was the guarantee of the continuance of his dynasty. This was the apogee of his reign.

But undermining forces already impinged: the faults inherent in his unwieldy achievement. England, his chief enemy, was persistently active; and rebellion both of the governing and of the governed broke out everywhere. Napoleon felt his impotence in coping with the Spanish Uprising , which he underrated, while yet unable to suppress it altogether. Men like Stein, Hardenberg and Scharnhorst had secretly started preparing Prussia's retaliation.

Napoleon's material omnipotence could not stand against the moral force of the pope, a prisoner at Fontainebleau; and this he did not realise. The alliance arranged at Tilsit was seriously shaken by the Austrian marriage, the threat of a Polish restoration, and the unfriendly policy of Napoleon at Constantinople. 

The very persons whom he had placed in power were counteracting his plans: after four years' experience Napoleon found himself obliged to treat his Corsican dynasties like those of the ancien régime, and all his relations were betraying him. 

Caroline Bonaparte conspired against her brother and against her husband Murat; the hypochondriacal Louis, now Dutch in his sympathies, found the supervision of the blockade taken from him, and also the defence of the Scheldt, which he had refused to ensure; Jerome Bonaparte, idling in his harem (http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Harem), lost that of the North Sea shores; and Joseph, who was attempting the moral conquest of Spain, was continually insulted at Madrid. 

The very nature of things was against the new dynasties, as it had been against the old.   After national insurrections and family recriminations came treachery from Napoleon's ministers. Talleyrand betrayed his designs to Metternich and sufferred dismissed; Fouché corresponded with Austria in 1809 and 1810, entered into an understanding with Louis, and also with England; while Bourrienne was convicted of peculation. 

By a natural consequence of the spirit of conquest Napoleon had aroused, all these parvenus, having tasted victory, dreamed of sovereign power: Bernadotte, who had helped him to the Consulate, played Napoleon false to win the crown of Sweden; Soult, like Murat, coveted the Spanish throne after that of Portugal, thus anticipating the treason of 1813 and the defection of 1814; many persons hoped for "an accident" which might resemble the tragic ends of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar.

The country itself, besides, though flattered by conquests, was tired of self-sacrifice. It had become satiated; "the cry of the mothers rose threateningly" against "the Ogre" and his intolerable imposition of wholesale conscription. The soldiers themselves, discontented after Austerlitz, cried out for peace after Eylau.

Finally, amidst profound silence from the press and the Assemblies, a protest was raised against imperial despotism by the literary world, against the excommunicated sovereign by Catholicism, and against the author of the continental blockade by the discontented bourgeoisie, ruined by the crisis of 1811.

Napoleon himself was no longer the "General Bonaparte" of his campaign in Italy. He was already showing signs of physical decay; the Roman medallion profile had coarsened, the obese body was often lymphatic. Mental degeneration, too, betrayed itself in an unwonted irresolution.

At Eylau, at Wagram, and later at Waterloo, his method of acting by enormous masses of infantry and cavalry, in a mad passion for conquest, and his misuse of his military resources, were all signs of his moral and technical decadence; and this at the precise moment when, instead of the armies and governments of the old system, which had hitherto reigned supreme, the nations themselves were rising against France, and the events of 1792 were being avenged upon her. The three campaigns of two years brought the final catastrophe.Napoleon had hardly succeeded in putting down the revolt in Germany when the tsar of Russia himself headed a European insurrection against the ruinous tyranny of the continental blockade. To put a stop to this, to ensure his own access to the Mediterranean and exclude his chief rival, Napoleon made a desperate effort in 1812 against a country as invincible as Russia. 

Despite his victorious advance, the taking of Smolensk, the victory on the Moskva, and the entry into Moscow, he was vanquished by Russian patriotism and religious fervour, by the country and the climate, and by Alexander's refusal to make terms. 

After this came the lamentable retreat, while all Europe was concentrating against him. Pushed back, as he had been in Spain, from bastion to bastion, after the action on the Berezina, Napoleon had to fall back upon the frontiers of 1809, and then - having refused the peace offered him by Austria at the congress of Prague, from a dread of losing Italy, where each of his victories had marked a stage in the accomplishment of his dream - on those of 1805, despite Lützen and Bautzen, and on those of 1802 after his defeat at Leipzig, where Bernadotte turned upon him, Jean Victor Moreau figured among the Allies, and the Saxons and Bavarians forsook him.

Following his retreat from Russia came Napoleon's retreat from Germany. After the loss of Spain, reconquered by Wellington, the rising in the Netherlands preliminary to the invasion and the manifesto of Frankfurt which proclaimed it, he had to fall back upon the frontiers of 1795; and then later was driven yet farther back upon. Those of 1792, despite the wonderful campaign of 1814 against the invaders, in which the old Bonaparte of 1796 seemed to have returned. Paris capitulated on 30 March 1814, and the Delenda Carthago, pronounced against England, was spoken of Napoleon. 

The great empire of East and West fell in ruins with the emperor's abdication at Fontainebleau. Only the Hundred Days revived the flame for a final flicker: France returned to a restored Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII.   

Napoleon's maxims on War

• Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.
• How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.
• Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other.
• I love a brave soldier who has undergone the baptism of fire.
• The secret of war lies in the communications.
• To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.
• The moral is to the physical as three to one.
• Victory belongs to the most persevering.
• The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
• Every soldier carries a marshal's baton in his pack.
• If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannonshots.
• Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
• An army marches on its stomach.
• You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
• There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
• In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it!
• One bad general is worth two good ones.
• Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.
• There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.
• He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.
• The most important qualification of a soldier is fortitude under fatigue and privation. Courage is only second; hardship, poverty and want are the best school for a soldier.
• In time of revolution, with perseverance and courage, a soldier should think nothing impossible.
• God is on the side with the best artillery
• An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined.
• Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.
• If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.
• In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.
• Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the later than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never.
• Courage is like love: it must have hope for nourishment.
• It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished. 
• In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.
• Remember , gentlemen, what a Roman emperor said: The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.
• If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.
• There are in Europe many good generals, but they see too many things at once. I see one thing, namely the enemy's main body. I try to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves.
• There is no man more pusillanimous than I when I am planning a campaign. I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make possible. I am in a thoroughly painful state of agitation. This does not keep me from looking quite serene in front of my entourage; I am like an unmarried girl laboring with child. Once I have made up my mind, everything is forgotten except what leads to success.
• It should not be believed that a march of three or four days in the wrong direction can be corrected by a countermarch. As a rule, this is to make two mistakes instead of one.
• In war, moral factors acount for three quarters of the whole; relative material strength accounts for only one quarter.
• The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.
• Sometimes a single battle decides everything and sometimes, too, the slightest circumstance decides the issue of a battle. There is a moment in every battle at which the least manoeuvre is decisive and gives superiority, as one drop of water causes overflow.
• You do not get peace by shouting: Peace. Peace is a meaningless word; what we need is a glorious peace. 
• What my enemies call a general peace is my destruction. What I call peace is merely the disarmament of my enemies. Am I not more moderate than they?
• If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds. I have made all the calculations, fate will do the rest.

• He who makes war for National independence must be enabled to count upon the union of all resources, all the wishes, and the concurrence of all the National authorities.
• An Emperor confides in national soldiers, not in mercenaries.
• The fate of a Nation may sometimes depend upon the position of a fortress.
• Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think they amply reward the soldiers' perils with the treasures they amass.
• It is the business of cavalry to follow up the victory, and to prevent the beaten army from rallying.
• The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.
• Charges of cavalry are equally useful at the beginning, the middle and the end of a battle. They should be made always, if possible, on the flanks of the infantry, escpecially when the latter is engaged in front.
• An army ought to only have one line of operation. This should be preserved with care, and never abandoned but in the last extremity.
• When you determine to risk a battle, reserve to yourself every possible chance of success, more particularly if you have to deal with an adversary of superior talent, for if you are beaten, even in the midst of your magazines and your communications, woe to the vanquished!
• When you have resolved to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nothing. A single battalion sometimes decides the day.
• The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.
• The first qualification of a soldier is fortitude under fatigue and privation. Courage is only the second; hardship, poverty, and want are the best school for a soldier.
• In war, the general alone can judge of certain arrangements. It depends on him alone to conquer difficulties by his own superior talents and resolution.
• Never lose sight of this maxim, that you should establish your cantonments at the most distant and best protected point from the enemy, especially where a surprise is possible. By this means you will have time to unite all your forces before he can attack you.
• Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defense, but depends on the sabre.
• A general-in-chief should ask himself several times in the day, 'What if the enemy were to appear now in my front, or on my right, or my left?" 
• In war, the moral element and public opinion are half the battle.
• Unity of command is essential to the economy of time. Warfare in the field was like a siege: by directing all one's force to a single point a breach might be made, and the equilibrium of opposition destroyed.
• War must be made as intense and awful as possible in order to make it short, and thus to diminish its horrors.
• I believe one bad general to be worth two good ones.
• War is like government, a matter of tact.
• The art of war is to gain time when your strength is inferior.
• An army which cannot be regularly recruited is a doomed army.
• A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
• Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.
• A man like me troubles himself little about a million men.
• Great battles are won with artillery.
• I have destroyed the enemy merely by marches.
• In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see. You must show confidence.
• My generals are a parcel of post inspectors.
• My enemies make appointments at my tomb.
• The worse the troops the greater the need of artillery.
• The spectacle of a field of battle after the combat, is sufficient to inspire Princes with the love of peace, and the horror of war.
• Much shedding of blood, many great actions, and triumphs, toil and perseverance are the end of all things human.
• Revolutions are good times for soldiers of talent and courage.
• It is easier to brave and threaten, than to conquer an enemy.
• Reprisals are but a sad resource.
• We should always go before our enemies with confidence, otherwise our apparent uneasiness inspires them with greater boldness.

STANLEY KUBRICK'S NAPOLEON: A LOT OF WORK, VERY LITTLE ACTUAL MOVIE

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/stanley-kubricks-napoleon-a-lot-of-work-very-little-actual-movie

By viceuk

One night during the pre-production phase on A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell asked Stanley
Kubrick why he was eating ice cream at the same time as his main course steak. "What's the
difference?" said Kubrick. "It's all food. This is how Napoleon used to eat."

Well that's how McDowell tells it anyway. There are lots of near-mythical stories about Kubrick's comprehensive research. That he was probably the most meticulous of film directors known to man is
not open to debate, and Napoleon, the film he tried and failed to make for decades, is the best example
of his attention to detail. Kubrick believed nobody had ever made a great historical film, and planned to
change this with a three-hour epic, telling the story of the French emperor's entire life.

[caption id="attachment_14599" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Stanley K."][/caption]

Kubrick thought Napoleon was the most interesting man to have ever walked the Earth. He called his life "an epic poem of action", thought his relationship with Josephine was "one of the great obsessional passions of all time", and said, "He was one of those rare men who move history and mold the destiny of their own times and of generations to come." Getting to work on the film in the mid-60s, after 2001 was released, he sent an assistant around the world to literally follow in Napoleon's footsteps ("Wherever Napoleon went, I want you to go," he told him), even getting him to bring back samples of earth from Waterloo so he could match them for the screen.

He read hundreds of books on the man and broke the information down into categories "on everything from his food tastes to the weather on the day of a specific battle". He gathered together 15,000 location scouting photos and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery.

He would shoot the film in France and Italy, for their grand locations, and Yugoslavia, for their cheap armies. These were pre-CG days, and he arranged to borrow 40,000 Romanian infantry and 10,000 cavalry for the battles. "I wouldn't want to fake it with fewer troops," he said to an interviewer at the time, "because Napoleonic battles were out in the open, a vast tableau where the formations moved in an almost choreographic fashion. I want to capture this reality on film, and to do so it's necessary to recreate all the conditions of the battle with painstaking accuracy."

He wanted David Hemmings and Audrey Hepburn for the leads, with Alec Guinness and Laurence Olivier as supporting characters, but it all came crashing down when, partly as a result of another Napoleon film,Waterloo, being released in 1970, studios decided Kubrick's dream was too financially risky. In the early 1980s, he still talked of wanting to make the film, but it wasn't to be. Although he died in 1999, there's a chance his vision may see the light of day; it's been offered to the likes of Ridley Scott and Ang Lee.

You could make it yourself if you want, as every single bit of information pertaining to the project has recently been published in the form of a book called Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made. It's ten books in one (literally, with nine books sitting inside one enormous carved out fake book), limited to 1,000 copies, and costs £450. All the location scouting photos, all the research pictures, costume tests, correspondence with historical experts, Kubrick's script – everything's in there. It's amazing. I went to the HQ of the publisher Taschen; they let me touch it. They wouldn't give me one for free for some reason.

Tony Frewin was Kubrick's assistant from 1965 until the director died (and beyond). I called him up for a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Kubrick's Napoleonic vortex.

Vice: So tell me how your life with Stanley began. You were an office boy for him, right?
Tony Frewin: Well, a runner. Office boy I think rather glorifies it.

How did you come across him in the first place?
I grew up in Borehamwood and he'd just moved in to MGM Studios down the road on the pre-production of2001. My father had just quit the management at MGM but he'd gone to work for Stanley, and he just kept on at me, saying, "Come down, we need a runner on this." I think I said something crass – in those days, in the mid-60s, we only ever went to see foreign language films, French films: Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Bunuel. Terribly snobbish. And I think I said something crass like, "Well if it was Jean-Luc Godard I might be interested." Ah God. What a prick.

The pretentiousness of youth.
Oh absolutely. You squirm when you think of it. Oh God. Anyway, I went down one Sunday afternoon and my dad showed me into this office, which was absolutely full of books on fantastic art, surrealism, Dadaism, cosmology, flying saucers, and I thought, "Fuck, I wouldn't mind working here just to have access to these books." And then Stanley came in, who I thought was an office cleaner, with a baggy pair of trousers and a sports jacket with ink stains all over it. And we got chatting, for about two hours, and he said, "When can you start?" and I said, "When do you want me to?" and he said, "Seven o'clock tomorrow morning." I said, "You've got a deal." That was a week after my 17th birthday.

[caption id="attachment_14603" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Mr Kubrick"][/caption]

What sort of running work was it? Anything that was required?
Yeah, and it was always like that. People used to say, "What's the management structure like there?" at Hawk Films, or whatever we called ourselves, and I'd say, "Well, there's Stanley at the top, and then everybody else." There were no tiers of middle management, there was Stanley at the apex and all the rest of us on the bottom line. But it was a tremendous education working for Stanley; he was an intellectual Catherine Wheel of ideas and projects and ideas and enthusiasm. You really earnt your nickel working for Stanley, but as [Full Metal Jacket writer] Michael Herr says in that lovely little book [Kubrick]: nobody earnt their nickel more than Stanley himself. He lived by example, not by dictat.

When do you remember him first talking about Napoleon?
I remember when we were working on 2001, he had a sort of fascination with military figures, he was always very interested in Julius Caesar, particularly the invasion of Britain, but this ability to be a man of action, an intellectual, a strategist, with political objectives, and how you balanced all this and did what was right, I guessNapoleon grew out of that.

Did he relate to these types of people?
I don't think he related to them, but he found them tremendously fascinating. How, ultimately, flaws in their character, particularly Napoleon, would bring them down. You see this in people in positions of public trust or power anyway; you know, Harriet Harman getting out after that car crash and imperiously saying, "I'm Harriet Harman. You know where to contact me." You know. I mean, what a cunt.

The research and planning he did for Napoleon is near legendary.
Yeah. He did a lot on all his films, not least of which was on the abandoned project, Wartime Lies, about the Holocaust. We spent nearly two years, day in day out, researching that. And in that same period Spielberg got the idea for Schindler's List, did the pre-production, made the film, released it, and we were still shuffling index cards.

So Schindler's List just killed it for him?
Well, he'd always wanted to do a film about the Holocaust, but it presented certain problems. As Stanley said, if you really want to make an accurate film about the Holocaust, it's got to be unwatchable. But he thoughtSchindler's List was a hard act to follow, and it wasn't the right time to do Wartime Lies. You know what [historian] Raul Hilberg said about Schindler's List? He wrote this massive three-volume study of the destruction of the European Jews, quite witty and funny too, but he said Schindler's List was a success story. A feelgood picture.

That's one way of looking at it. In terms of Stanley's fascination with Napoleon, what do you know of Malcolm McDowell's story about him eating dessert and steak at the same time, because that's how Napoleon used to eat?
I'd take that with a pinch of Bolivian marching powder.

Do you think the levels of research he carried out and his attention to the smallest detail was all part of the fun?
Well, it was a means to an end. He said, "God is in the detail." But he knew when to cut his research, when to stop it. Barry Lyndon is a wonderful example of a historical film correctly done, right down to the lighting. Unlike all this crap you see on the BBC now. What he aimed for was for that it actually looked like at the time. It's a wonderful film.

Do you think if he was making films today he would have utilised CGI?
Oh absolutely.

What about for extras? He'd hired 40,000 or so troops for Napoleon; do you think now he would have done that with CGI, or would he still have hired all those people for authenticity's sake?
I think it would depend very much on the shot. Some shots you might need a couple of thousand, and then some CGI. Although I don't think he would have automatically thought, Let's CGI everything.

Was he enthusiastic about new technology in that area?
Oh absolutely, from the word go. He used to say anything that saved time was worth its weight in gold. The rest of us were sort of luddites, but he wasn't. In 1980 he bought us all IBM green screens. These were the first PCs that were generally available, little 12" screens. You didn't even have a hard drive, you had two floppies. And Stanley said, "This is the future, this is what we'll be using." And I told him, "No, I like to type something and take out the piece of paper and see what's on it," and he said, "No, listen, you've got to get rid of that, this is the future, it's arrived now." He wasn't at all conservative in that way; we had fax machines before anybody else did. People would say, "What the fuck do you want a fax machine for?" But he'd grab anything that saved time and made things look better.

How would you feel about Ridley Scott making the film?
Well, he's a very competent director, but it would be a very different film from Stanley's. There's only one Stanley who could make a Stanley Kubrick film.

ALEX GODFREY

Napoleon's Proclamation to His Troops in Italy (March-April 1796)

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/nap1796.html
In 1796, Napoleon, then a young officer of 27 years of age, was given command of the French army in Italy. In the Italian campaign, he demonstrated his genius for propaganda and psychological warfare, as the following selections from his proclamation to his troops makes clear.

[March 27, 1796]
Soldiers, you are naked, ill fed! The Government owes you much; it can give you nothing. Your patience, the courage you display in the midst of these rocks, are admirable; but they procure you no glory, no fame is reflected upon you. I seek to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power. There you will find honor, glory, and riches. Soldiers of Italy, would you be lacking in courage or constancy?

[April 26, 1796]
In a fortnight you have won six victories, taken twenty-one standards, fifty-five pieces
plains in the world. Rich provinces, great of artillery, several strong positions, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont [a region in northern Italy]; you have captured 15,000 prisoners and killed or wounded more than 10,000 men. . . .

You have won battles without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches without shoes, camped without brandy and often without bread. Soldiers of liberty, only republican phalanxes [infantry troops] could have endured what you have endured. Soldiers, you have our thanks! The grateful Patrie[nation] will owe its prosperity to you. . . .

The two armies which but recently attacked you with audacity are fleeing before you in terror; the wicked men who laughed at your misery and rejoiced at the thought of the triumphs of your enemies are confounded and trembling.

But, soldiers, as yet you have done nothing compared with what remains to be done. . . .

. . . Undoubtedly the greatest obstacles have been overcome; but you still have battles to fight, cities to capture, rivers to cross. Is there one among you whose courage is abating? No. . . .  All of you are consumed with a desire to extend the glory of the French people; all of you long to humiliate those arrogant kings who dare to contemplate placing us in fetters; all of you desire to dictate a glorious peace, one which will indemnify the Patrie for the immense sacrifices it has made; all of you wish to be able to say with pride as you return to your villages, "I was with the victorious army of Italy!"

Friends, I promise you this conquest; but there is one condition you must swear to fulfill—to respect the people whom you liberate, to repress the horrible pillaging committed by scoundrels incited by our enemies. Otherwise you would not be the liberators of the people; you would be their scourge. . . . Plunderers will be shot without mercy; already, several have been. . . .

Peoples of Italy, the French army comes to break your chains; the French people is the friend of all peoples; approach it with confidence; your property, your religion, and your customs will be respected.

We are waging war as generous enemies, and we wish only to crush the tyrants who enslave you.

St. Helena

Escape Routine On Napoleon's Island Of Imprisonment

Carrying the name Saint Helena reminding of the Constantinople empress sanctified by some of the major religions because she found the relics of the True Cross, this British island is one of the most isolated in the world. Due to its solitary position, the second oldest remaining colony after Bermuda was the place where French iconic figure Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled. The notable name now draws tourists from around the world and the St. Helena coffee, the most expensive in the world, bears fame for once delighting this leader's taste buds.

Ideal for Exile in Solitude

Bonaparte's place of banishment lies in the South Atlantic Ocean and is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Small in size covering only 16 by 18 kilometers (10 by 5 miles), this land spot lies more than 2000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away from any major landmass. St. Helena was the solitude prison for Dinuzulu KaCetshwayo, the king of the Zulu and more than 5000 other prisoners. With Bonaparte's arrival on October 1815, the secluded St. Helena was guarded like never before by troops and ships.

The Beauty of a Prison

Discovered by the Portuguese and named by a Galician navigator, St. Helena was governed since 1659. The pretty island in the South Atlantic carries the name of Helena of Constantinople, a sanctified empress by religions like the Easter Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern and Roman Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran. Nowadays the terrains, volcanic in origin are divided into eight districts, home to a population of about 4200 people. Because of the fertile grounds the island is covered in remarkable vegetation with many indigenous species. The cabbage tree species are some of the endemic flora wonders and the national bird, the St. Helena Plover features even on the coat of arms. There are a number of rockets and islets off the coast of St. Helena which appeal mostly through names like Castle Rock, Black Rock, the Needle and their photographic shapes.

Walking Napoleon's Shoes

Even though St. Helena was the place where Napoleon has lost his freedom, the appeal of the isolated ''jail cell'' has grown with tourists over the years. Whether you want to remember the French warrior figure by visiting the last grounds he ever walked on or you are interested in studying the spectacular flora and fauna of the island named after a saint, St. Helena will definitely be the place to capture your interest. Climb Diana's Peak which is part of the island's first National Park, relax while golfing or birdwatching and taste the St. Helena coffee which has made history.

Live a special experience on Napoleon's island of imprisonment, the secluded St. Helena highlighted through pristine beauty and remarkable flora and fauna.

• Activity & Adventure
 
• Beaches
 
• Camping
 
• Family Entertainment
 
• Famous Landmarks
 
• Golf
• History/Culture
 
• Isolated places
 
• Natural Beauty
 
• Peace & Quiet
 
• Romance
 
• Sun
 
• Water Sports
• Boat
 
• Climbing
 
• Hiking
 
• January
 
• February
 
• March
 
• April
 
• Relaxing

How to get there?

The pretty island St. Helena where Napoleon faced his exile can be reached by ship only. A direct trip to this isolated drop of paradise can be caught either from Cape Town or from Ascension Island. Traveling from the United Kingdom are also possible but they are not direct and take a longer while.