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BONY_DREAD

                                              February 23, 2005


  The peculiar attractions
  of dictators, endless and
  dangerously glorified...

    Napoleon is *still* a name
    that has a glow of awe
    about it for many people.

    He's a Great Man!
    He did Great Things!
    He killed lots of people!

                                     LONG_VIEW

 H.G. Wells, in his "Outline of
 History" devotes an entire chapter
 to trying to dim that glow --          H.G. Wells:
 as is typical, few seem to have        Cassandra of
 listened.                              the modern world.

  Chapter XXXVI begins:

  "... an adventurer and a wrecker,
  whose story seems to display with
  an extraordinary vividness the universal
  subtle conflict of egotism, vanity, and
  personality with the weaker, wider claims
  of the common good."  -- p.892


  "Caesar had come back to Rome from Gaul
  a hero and conqueror.  His new imitator
  would come back from Egypt and
  India... There was really none of the
  genius about which historians write so
  glibly in this decision.  It was tawdry
  and ill-conceived imitation."  -- p. 895

     [...]

  "Here was muddle and failure enough to
  discredit any general -- had it been
  known.  But the very British cruisers
  which came so near to catching him,              This is hardly a model
  helped him by preventing any real                of "greatness" that
  understanding of the Egyptian situation          anyone (outside of the
  from reaching the French people." --  p. 896     Bush/Cheney regime)
                                                   would want to see emulated.



      "With Julius Caesar rather than Washington
      at the back of his mind, Napoleon responded
      to the demand of his time.  A conspiracy was
      carefully engineered to replace the
      Directory by three 'consuls' -- everybody
      seems to have been reading far too much
      Roman history just then -- of whom Napoleon
      was to be the chief."  -- p. 897


            So, Napoleon came to prominence for
            "saving the Directory"... and then                 FRENCHREVS
            later conspired to subvert it, putting
            himself in place, eventually declaring
            himself Emperor.


 Tolstoy in "War and Peace" stops to
 discuss Napoleon's behavior after invading
 Moscow.  Tolstoy argues convincingly (and
 possibly even correctly) that of all
 possible decisions Napoleon could have
 made after reaching Moscow, he chose the
 absolute worst: retreating along the same
 line he attacked, through country already
 picked clean of supplies.

                          FLAKES_OF_GENIUS


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