Napoleon by Adam Zamoyski and Andrew Roberts

ladies and gentlemen it's a great honor to see so many of you here I would like to ask Adam a few questions about his his excellent book on that Napoleon incredibly well written and well researched but unfortunately fundamentally wrong and we will have a few moments discussing that and then and we will throw it open to the floor for you all to agree with me the first thing I'd like to say that is that this is undoubtedly the best book on Napoleon's who have been written in the last four years and one month and Adams been to all the important archives has read all the important books primary and secondary and so my first question is Adam and why do you not appreciate the greatness of the Emperor greatness come on he was just a bloke the obvious greatness of the Emperor you British historian I'm an honorary Britannian actualized Brit fully paid-up fully sworn up to Her Majesty are very proud of it but the trouble is you true Brits have a problem with Napoleon and I mean some historians go to great lengths to compare him with Hitler and Stalin and God knows who and others just go do lolly over him no Tom Dean I mean I was reading I didn't use many secondary sources but I did read some of the recent literature and I was reading Michel bras otherwise quite interesting book he's a professor of modern history at Oxford and I suddenly read that when he was a cadet school napoleon read voraciously in fact he read so voraciously that even read by candlelight under his bedclothes I said hello really my god you know what is it that makes so many you know incredibly serious and and everyday British historians suddenly got a bit funny over Napoleon and you say are you arguing that he didn't read voraciously as you know he read voraciously I don't think he would have got very far reading under his bed either candle would have gone out or he wouldn't corner or he - Eliza Zack so you know this is my problem with this this greatness the guy was ok he had many undoubted talents he was an extraordinarily hard worker he had a he was incredibly motivated and as a result he got along and did a whole lot of things rose and and and achieved a great deal but he was actually a very ordinary man in many ways use tremendous ease of middle-class in all his views frightfully terribly worried about anything that was unseemly that was that was messy he was a control freak he liked everything to be just so and just right and clean and and and and you know I actually meant the reasons I feel sympathy for him was because he was rather an ordinary little man who occasionally got quite lost in very very great event I will direct you to page 440 and that when you say an ordinary little man because just like to remind you that when he neck Gerta for example and you say that first of all he spoke to the poet Leland who he had invited for the purpose showing off his knowledge to the surprised and flattered German literary men listening to him he then warned walked over to Goethe and had a long conversation with him and Goethe was tremendously impressed with him did ordinary little men really be able to speak for a couple of hours with German poets philosophers and in Goethe's case the greatest intellectual of the continent really you really don't think that he was you never you know what you know what tarts all literary figures are the pagan wasn't stupid he had read lots of stuff he had an incredible memory so and and of course he was also terribly keen to impress everybody because he was actually he'd never been to school formally at all he arrived at cadet school at the age of nine where they were given a pretty odd education and so he he tried to make up for his lack of education and at home in Corsica in this tiny place I mean they're all jammed into a few rooms in this in this quite squalid house the house he who's bored Hokkien was so decrepit and dilapidated that the French billeting Commission and qualified it is only suitable for billeting lower ranks not even NCOs so you can imagine what that was I think that I think shows very much another aspect of this do Ambar book from the council whose 15th century family have produced three chances of poland up to the late 18th century and who in this book effectively defends the ancien régime now count as a moist goooooo fend the on Sierra G no I don't actually defend out I think I'm white I'm white and where does somebody who grows up in a small little middle-class house can't be great he can be great but now the fact is he didn't have an education his father was unbelievably poor military yes to move ants later but he was key felt he was always catching up and his background particularly with this father was a crashing small balloon and a social climber of gigantic proportions who had huge ambitions for his family was sort of pushing his children and this boy felt he had to educate himself which he did and he just he crowned himself and of course he you know he could shine and he was fantastically good he would he would go up to as you well know he would go up to some scientist and immediately start talking about you know chemical processes or trigonometry or something like any ordinary person able to do yes however just because somebody can cram a whole lot of stuff and be very good at a lot of stuff it I wouldn't say you know the great his rise to power and how coming becoming a general at the age of 24 and and then basically the first Consul of France by the age of thirty makes him an ordinary person well when he became general at the age of 24 there were at least a couple of dozen generals younger than him basically because most of the generals and senior officers in the French army who had been no woman all fled because the revolution was not exactly very congenial to them and so they all fled abroad and so there was a dearth of generals and I'd forget the statistics but literally something like some 800 generals were made over the space of were nominated it was base of about three years so I think that is necessarily such an extraordinary no I think seriously there is something which most people don't take into account when writing about Napoleon they're so taken with this idea of the genius everybody loves this idea of a genius since you name they it's a fairytale in fact there was somebody who I don't know wrote a very nice reviewer from my book in The Times and they they didn't like Napoleon so they were delighted I debunked him or at least I brought him down to earth but then he said but although the books wonderfully written and is very true and is very important actually you know we rather miss the old fairy tale well you know you can't have it both ways you either want to read hands Christian Andersen or you want to read history but the point about Napoleon is that it wasn't just Napoleon one man it was come on Andrew you know very well there was the most enormous social and cultural and political revolution had taken place yes which was pretty used which which needed him to be able to to allow to actually flourish because up until that point you had either this appalling French revolutionary terror which killed 40,000 people or you had the incompetent incorrupt sorry incompetent corrupt and dreadful directory which desperately needed to be overthrown as well in order to have the great things that came to France you needed to have somebody who was going to impose the system that allowed it to happen and that was Napoleon talk about the code the podium for example unless you're going to lock it well no I mean the fact is you know he surfed a wave and he was the right man at the right surf the wave the broom air ku and he didn't I see your offensive the broom air hose I enjoyed your accounts too very much however however I the idea that he came to power completely by mistake by accident just staggering around and then finally becoming dictator of France it doesn't happen like that nearly he nearly screwed the whole thing up he could be new you made thanks to his brother and others that they they saw suddenly that if they didn't get it done they were all going to be guillotine so they they sort of pushed him in and it happened I mean you know it was the whole of what the whole in the play on ik think was a vast group effort there were thousands and thousands tens of thousands of young men and not so young men who wanted to create a new France and he wanted to do what he wanted and like as so often happens people sort of wait for the man who's going to say come on follow me and he did that and I'll give him that he was very careful about it but but he used to say endlessly if it hadn't been for me it would have been another let's talk about the monuments and the institutions that he he built all very good on the institution's there's one off the other of the other many of them still exist today you're not going to give him any credit for that either no I'll give some credit but you know when you took so he touched the button when you take the countess Amoy ski the lovely beautiful found Emma's Amoy ski to Paris on romantic weekends do you ever cross any of the bridges that he built do you ever see any of the great streets that he built the the wonderful churches that he made beautiful do you ever see the the art to care CEL do you what do you do in Paris with what does a ante Napoleon person do in Paris well first of all I'm not anti Napoleon and there are plenty of buildings in Paris that predated he did clean the place up and he did but coming back to the institution's he was he was again he was the catalyst if you look at the code Napoleon which she won talking about I mean he saw he did have something extraordinary you know he sat down and there were all these clever people who'd been discussing things as you name for years how to formulate the laws and codify them and they would discuss in learned discourses and then say well I think we'd better think about it and go home and think about it again and he just sat him down and kept them up to four o'clock in the morning bang their heads together and said come on do it just like any ordinary man would know which which was a great achievement however when he personally brought in his views they were very often very ludicrous such as that marvelous thing about when there are twins of all they were deciding since he'd you know there was a question of which was gonna be the elder one he decide well the first one in must be the last one art you know sort of good peasant logic that no he did a huge number of things but you know it wasn't just him I mean it was all there and he bankrupted his regime building what about the what about the I know as a as a sign of the ancien régime you where necessarily like this but what about the meritocracy the way in which he was able to bring in of his marshals half of them came from classes that had never got to the marshal at before anywhere near it and you know there was the son of the Royal mole catcher for example and do you think that the way in which he he allowed people to rise to the very top of society giving dictums and things to people who were the sons of innkeepers and bowel tippers was something that was that was positive about society well actually I think this is where he went wrong because actually the Revolution had liberated these people and they all rose and thanked thanks to their rising he was able to win all these fantastic battles because you know he wouldn't have Wow obviously you agreed that he was a military genius a genius no I didn't buy the word genius he did I mean how can you call him the military gee is somebody who precise one of these fantastic battles that's why many fantastic battles but he wouldn't have been able to do it and he had a whole lot of royalist officers who are already dukes he had a whole lot of innkeepers and people who were hungry a lot of them pretty nasty people and and and on the way up and determined to fight and the Lewton rape and shoot and and that was very good and he mobilized that and he was very good and to the hurt my boy you know what I think the problem is with Napoleon is that you know up till about 1804 and he's fantastic he sorts out the mess he does everything he goes along it intellectually it all sits together and suddenly because he having become Emperor which I don't regard that as being you know taking power as being you know a bad thing on his part because he realizes that somebody's got to keep absolute power and it was partly because of all the Royalists and British plots against him that it was thought that his Thomas Ben shrined in heredity but it don't hold something everybody is exactly on drew it's the minute he actually becomes Emperor he suddenly thinks hello I'm rather ground now and he starts affecting the sort of borba wazzle he makes them all dress been Ludacris clothes that have been out 88 40 years before and starts giving all these innkeepers sons ludicrous titles which most them didn't originally want which make a mockery of the whole system he then brings back a whole lot of not necessary very competent aristocrat em agrees and gives them great offices of court and actually undermines a lot of his greatest achievements including recalls tally Rock who gets quite a good write-up in your book where is he was just a completely untrustworthy treacherous bastard was it he was a completely untrustworthy treacherous bastard but he was brilliant and and it was a great mistaken parent to have fired him and not to followed his advice had he followed his advice he probably would have survived yeah also of just guillotine him advice what do you think almost made him single-handed he helped along he was important in the in the broom air coup but he was also selling secrets to the Russians constantly and and undermining him at every stage like that but that would I mean he of course turn around already betrayed the Empire sorry betrayed the directory and the then was later to betray the Bourbons and probably if he'd lived long enough would have betrayed the July monarchy as well so you know he's not necessarily some deeded but you can't resist him you just can't resist what let's go a little bit more into this idea that he wasn't a military genius and considering he fought 60 battles 147 and drew seven of them in a lost seven what was there about that if that was a football team you'd be pretty pleased with you yeah no he was that he was very very good but you know the idea military genius presupposes that this guy just has got something that no other commander and the point was most of his those baffles certainly all the early ones were fought against incompetent septuagenarian generals commanding eighteenth-century armies that would sort of be told to go forward so they'd lumbered forward five paces and then they'd be told to move this way and they move that way and if they found themselves so encircled they'd say right well this is the point at which we give up because this is cricket and the rules are you give up and something you know they were he disposed of them of a band of brigands that I mean the army of Italy during that campaign whereas all under fed rabble and he said look you'll pay and your money and your everything you want is on the other side of that army and just go and you can do anything you liked them come on you can do it and we can do it and they they were Desperados and they did it and they they went like a nice reporter also he worked at it he studied the terrain he looked at the things he was awake and alert and the minute he got rather pleased themselves having won too many battles he started losing them because he couldn't be bothered too much he didn't learn from his own mistakes stay there in 1814 campaign he won five battles in four days I know because he woke up finally he was you know you got had to get real he was down on his uppers - summer Adams view of Churchill's oh sorry well you go of Napoleon's and the sake of lack of genius in battle I'm just going to be one sentence from his preface which is to those who would like to learn more about the battles I would recommend andrew roberts his master form the barrier and moving on moving on we are here 200 years very late read it is largely finish we are here 200 years later discussing him he is somebody who still inspires movies and TVs and and and impressive well-written well-researched wrong books and why why are we still talking about it they do really think that that is solely just about some myth that was created 200 years ago do you really don't think that there's when you look at the core to come to the or the concept are or the various other things that he created that they actually do constitute a a body of legacy that was not just other people's work or luck but actually was enough to for us to concentrate on this extraordinary man 200 years later and if you genuinely think that he wasn't much Cobb then why should we both be spending you know half a decade of our lives writing books about him no I didn't think that he wasn't much cop I think he was an absolute remarkable man and also what happened what he was part of was seminal to the way that certainly the continent of Europe and much of the world has developed its you know you don't have to like the way he because he was a control freak and all his institutions are very much they created this French model on which so much of Europe and and many other countries are based this very tertius model of controlling everything prescriptive things no I don't want to deny his his undoubted achievements and I ranked them up with up a great deal of admiration in some cases but the reason why he as a person keeps fascinating people is interesting because people like the idea and fairy tale heat for France he was presented as the Saviour he was then toppled by what they regarded the French regarded as lesser people and which by the way the whole European Romantic movement regarded as lesser people led by of course the British nation of shopkeepers and but even the British poets in a barren Shelley the whole lot who were appalled at his fall in a way at least emotionally and so he became a kind of symbol and which he of course then his he's really his real great moment of greatness is when he's on st. Helena where he takes where he rarely wins his finally his battle against the British where he turns them into the absolute epitome of pettifogging nastiness and with himself into a kind of christ-like martyr yes I mean you you are you you don't go along with that obviously in fact you're rather kind to Hudson Lowe the governor santolina who was in my view a pettifogging official but nonetheless you seemed to take his side in the way of not even he may know sanity is sorry I mean I I think I think the point was that used the very silly little man with an Arab leading man and and who find himself in a silly position and couldn't and and was just manipulated he was completely outclassed by Napoleon who was who was the greatest propagandist that's another reason we're still talking about him he was the greatest propagandist an image maker that probably that the world has yet seen and I mean everywhere there are these images and body will you know the silhouette with a little heart and that you know any educated persons were out Europe will recognize that in a way that they won't various other said resi extraordinary he he turned himself into this this great transcendent being the superior genius and but this was his downfall because he couldn't keep up with it and he felt he had to keep piling on there was no point at which he could sit down say okay and I've won a lot of territory for France at one laura battles we've beaten our major foes let's just sit down and get on with life I didn't do that and one of the reasons for that was that he needed to see the Continental System through and in your your book he rightly point out that with regard to Britain imports of much-needed cereals of plummeted by a staggering 93 percent and Napoleon calculated that if the pressure could be kept out the country would not be able to feed itself and there would be bread riots which would force the government to his knees so it was essentially Britain's willingness to to fight against this concept of a European customs union that brought down Napoleon wasn't it well you could put it that way I mean what's what's so interesting is that we talk about Napoleon's Continental system but in fact there had been a trade war going on between France and Britain for about a hundred years and it was being ratcheted up but he like everything else you did wanted to put it into a sort of big you know labor Leighton and and make it absolutely watertight which of course was not only impossible because it meant that he was going to hurt not only his own countries but all his allies and if the Russians had gone along with it if they hadn't broken with it in the last month's of 1810 and obviously made by 1811 it a casas belly um what do you think do you think it could have worked ultimately well it what did come very close I mean in 1812 there were those blood and bread riots in Britain and Luddism got got very very nice it was it was quite a nasty moment for the government and they might have but then because because he needed money and his own people were starving he then allowed broke his own system which was really ridiculous but I think the real problem with Napoleon and I mean whatever anybody says I you know I actually quite like the guy anway know I've noticed that secretly I've noticed I've noticed even thus evening that he's kept saying nice things about him underlying it actually I think Adam might be a secret they departed no I'm but I see and this is what my book was about I tried to actually get close to the guy and to see what motivated him you know why does this guy do all this stuff and of course tell us what you do like about it you didn't just write it this is not a debunking book this is not one of those those aggressive you know Napoleon is a proto Hitler kind of books at all it is a much more nuanced much more intelligent than that so tell us what you do like about him and what you think there for people who who admire Napoleon should buy this book to to remind themselves of well I find him immensely touching because you know here's this little guy who comes from a hick town tiny little smelly port fishing village of a yacht show turns up in northern France aged nine with the dubious titles of nobility can't speak French will hardly do you think TV assume that they don't go back to the 15th century I think you know they was exactly what they were fixed they were fixed by his father and it was frightful creature and and he's got chips on every single show they've got sacks of potatoes he's puny he's sickly he's got an olive complexion they they tease him for being foreign for being not particularly noble there was even a rumor that he was a bastard and he then struggles along and he has to fight every age the way he's got he's got and he never sheds his social insecurity he's he then he's he's a defensive he's pretty SH he gets he frightful stew because it turns out one of his friends at military schools is gay and so he starts lecturing him and saying this is disgusting this depravity I can't possibly remain friends with you and all this I think he then has to deal with women which we won't even go into yes we will and you I'm afraid that you you read that piece of French wrong Andrews because he finally decides having lectured Britain lectures on saying and the pieces action essay saying that tongue you know love his old man he decides to go and find out what all the fuss is about so he picks up a tart in the Palais Royale having by his own admission failed to do so a couple of times now young officer left Tennant in the Royal Army you know 18 year old left and it should be able to pick up a tartan I mean anyway um but he having failed to and he admits to that because what he does is he then finds this girl and what does he do you know what does a fallen woman want to hear he's not saying oh why it's nice not a girl like you doing a thing like this and so she said well you know seduced Bailey he thinks us or you know do regret it and he goes on and on it's a November night it's freezing cold and he goes on asking her nerd questions and then finally she says well you know are we gonna go and do it or are we gonna go and do it you suggest he said that but it isn't it's oh well I don't know whether this conversation took place before or after the act well he claims it everybody would would mount her he next morning hisses Don writes the whole thing up as they recite a scientific experiment doesn't mention whether he enjoyed it or not let's say the poor guy never in and then he had a few entanglements which weren't very successful then he is set up with this woman Josephine who's six years older than him and who is a rarely rarely experienced older woman it was a very very good lover and suddenly she makes it work for him and he goes absolutely nuts I mean he thinks this is it he falls in love I can't bear the whole thing and she treats him like it's sort of joke and cheats on him because he's obviously not very interesting and far too earnest as well and at her age she finds a society ridiculous to have this young man going on about how in love his but you know the poor man you need to come to home soil the poor man is an absolute you know mine of complexes and chips and of course it gets worse and worse Emperor and then he's surrounded by kings and you think and he's telling Kings what to do another Emperor's and well and then he marries the Empress of Austria's daughter and say goes around saying oh my great uncle the 16th and all this and yet in the side he's chewed up with the fact that he is just a commoner and that this is doubtful because when he's everybody's begging him to make peace at reasonable price he says I can't I can't I can't I can't because I'm not a proper King I'm not yes but no actually the words he uses about his his coronation oath in which he says he's not going to give up the into the integrity of France which he did promise not to and all of these people want to try to chip away at that I don't think that when when we go back to the idea of having a experienced lover who's six years older than you that that should be something that I mean that that's a pretty wonderful thing isn't it yeah and so and so tell us let's go back to with regard to the twenty-two or twenty-three mistresses that he had over his life do you think that that was some kind of cry for help or was it something that he just enjoyed no I I think that you know he did try and but the point is that actually and this is one of the reasons I feel safer he wasn't very good at enjoying things and I mean first start he never took more than 15 minutes over lunch or dinner and if you can't sit down you never drank more than half a glass of wine with watered-down and you know even I feel really sorry for Augusta Country she enjoy a bottle of wine and especially gave me for France and most exactly and most when he's got everything I Greek here and when and you know most of the women he had it was quite sort of quickened and expedited pretty quickly he did have a few with whom Mary Valeska may Louise with whom he rarely did love hanging about and and and seemed to really enjoy being with and I think it's quite interesting that they were both very naive and inexperienced virgins when he got them and I think he was probably you know this was a great comfort zone but I come back to the fact that you know I feel sorry for this guy who and by the way I knew that he used the question of his coronation oath which is true however he did say endlessly to people he would come out and I'm just paraphrasing he'd say look your real kings can go out lose 20 battles and give up five provinces and still come back capitals and their people love them I cannot because I'm a parvenu upstart soldier he says that again and again to many different people showing great showing great self-knowledge but that is that and that's what stopped him from preserving history and people said never your people do love you combat sit down we don't need a wretched Empire you know just make France happy make peace and let's all just be happy and all that and he couldn't do it because he was eaten up by this feeling that unless he produced more glory won more battles they wouldn't respect him and I find is actually terribly touching and rather sad and because it's it's an awful story in fact it's much better than the fairy tale usually told told it's to me it's a very moving story of a man of huge has a huge prevent potential who does extraordinary things and then buggers it all up because of his own insecurities and on that bombshell hang on I'd like to add one thing here is an interesting comparison since we've got I was going to start by saying Andrew why aren't you wearing a visual donor in your buttonhole yet because you've been saved myself questioning times over yeah but in fact as I was approached you get to pronounce the legend owner as well as one of the great Napoleonic adventures as I was approaching the conwy hall my wife said oh look and there we saw this chechi and figure marching towards the hall that actually I was walking down the College of anaesthetists and I thought I hope that isn't going to be an augury for this evening and the point is that mature chill was also a self-promoting man who played fast and loose with the truth and built up quite consciously images of himself he also loved war and adventure he was also brilliant brilliant with soldiers and and and and troops and so on he admired Napoleon he also believed that in his destiny and so on but I think what saved him was that he was born into into a Emilia in which he felt that what he that he felt almost that it was his duty to do what he did and as a result he never felt insecurity and by the way I'd like to say that here that Andrews book on the church in which I'm reading at the moment is great and I recommend it and I recommend it to you hard right well now we are stopping and happy gay day but there is a gentleman the back he has got a microphone there's also one upstairs in the gallery who has a microphone if people would like to put their hands up and ask questions about why Adam is so wrong and that would be great and do I see the first hand either up or down yes there's a gentleman up here in the in the gallery at the top good evening how do you think if in anyway his relationship with his family led to his downfall thank you question it is a good question he he's it was partly his upbringing I mean he did the Corsican idea was that the family was everything and you you stuck by the family and it was affirmed and he kept trying to treat it as that and the big problem was that they weren't quite as useless as he occasionally thought they were and as though as as they sometimes appeared his older brother Joseph was quite useless in many ways but actually once he'd been put on the throne of Naples he turned out to be a lot less useless than its previous occupant what about staying there and if in Spain he'd allowed him if he'd given him command or authority he might well have he might have made Horlicks for it but he was trying but he kept undermining him and he did the same with Louie in Holland who actually is still quite well remembered in Holland certainly not reviled and had he allowed him a little bit of leeway that might have worked Jerome was a complete idiot but as as one aristocrat sort of said actually if you were just a tiny bit less fatuous in the way he in his behavior he'd make a perfectly normal monarch just like every other so you know he the problem was that he was such a control freak if he had allowed them and of course the most gifted was Lucia but he was the one of cannon a loose cannon and but if he'd you know managed them better they could have been an asset as it was or if he got rid of them or just sort of put them away in in in in sort of economic padded cells around France then that might have been all right but but he I think he he this was one of his poems it's why I had a lot of his marshals as well he wouldn't let them he didn't give them free rein what would you say no I agree I agree but I have a much lower opinion of all of the of all of the family and in fact there were so many places that he should have relied on the local talents rather than imposing his his family and unstuck to the meritocracy rather than go back to the ancien régime concept so Abele personified by Adam right next question I think there's somebody is there somebody here in the in the front thank you very much I'd like to ask a question about the Duchy of Warsaw was that a problem in the podían side that he created it considering that Prussians just became his new allies yes actually can I just think this is a very interesting aspect I mean to what extent does Adam feel such doubt about Napoleon because he is polish because of course Poland although although Napoleon is mentioned in the Polish national anthem he did nothing or very little to advance Polish nationalists are you polish yourself yes okay so this will be very interesting answer well most poles still worship Napoleon which I cannot understand but anyway clearly yes you do all day and no it was I think if you I think if you want to really analyze where the whole thing where he made his you know the whole thing went probably irredeemably wrong was in 1806 1807 after he'd in a beaten Austria beaten Prussia and then beaten Russia he was essentially the master of Europe and it was a moment at which he could have you know he reorganized things in one way he could have reorganized them in another he was really the master of Europe in that sense and Teller all whom he sacked shortly after Tilsit and this is where I think he went terribly wrong Tunnel had been in negotiations with Metheny in Austria and yeah he said look either you know you've got to make Austria your strategic Ally that's you're not Russia and Austria was prepared unofficially to give up its part of Poland in return for being given back the part of Venetian territory that an appended given it at California that would have guaranteed Napoleon an ally in the eastern Mediterranean which would have been useful for him and they suggested also both metonic and tunnel reducing Prussia and putting it into the Confederation of the Rhine and creating you know either creating a proper Poland which is in guaranteed by Austria and France as a buffer against Russia or if you're gonna make friends with Russia then don't build up a Duchy of Warsaw because it's a problem and like so much Napoleon's certainly after 1807 it was a work in progress he kept moving provinces around chasing changing boundaries and destabilizing things and it was it was a huge you know it was neither one thing nor the other and in 1812 how do you decide to go to war with Russia properly he could have you know announced the creation of great payment or he could have given the Duchy of Warsaw to Russia and possibly bought Russia's alliance which I doubt because Russian would have then wanted more he to my mind his the his greatest mistake was that he chose his strategic Ally in 1807 badly because France was a dominant power and the Poland was an insecure man and he chooses am i a man with huge ambitions and an insecure power which felt humiliated by Austerlitz a lao friedland and was dreaming of revenge and wanted to move into europe and no it was never going to work that lies next question gentlemen thank you very much for a really entertaining evening my question would be we were trying to be in like you achiever sorry about that so my question will be what in your eyes is Napoleon's greatest impact for the modern age well yes why didn't I feel it if you can't understand the modern age without him he's absolutely central to moving moving Europe and because Europe had so much influence over the rest of the world a sense the world from the ancien régime world where you could only rise as far as your grandfather ever rose to the modern world where you can rise as far as your talents and abilities allow you it is a completely different system that we have from the premium poliana k-- world and a far better one yes I mean I died question happens actually if you look at the last 50 years of France under the ancien régime the social mobility was unbelievable they were valid who became Marcus's and there were strongly sort of people it became because is that only way it was in any way it was the it was the revolution that changed that not Napoleon and if anything he actually brought back now what he did do was he created he and the people he worked with because most of the work was done he was directing teams of very very able people he created the what I would say is the blueprint certainly a created modern France which but also the blueprint of really most modern Western democratic states and certainly the way the state functions and even though they tried to abolish everything afterwards all you know the one thing that the Pope did the king of Sardinia the Dutch and everybody kept was the Jean Tom Murray and his tax collecting system those are at least the two things they they they kept but most of Europe is if you look around the way the law works the way all sorts of mechanisms work the whole notary system that was it's all on on the Napoleonic pattern so it is huge his legacy so a question at the top there and anyone in the yes there we are there's a lady just behind you is going to give you a microphone there could you give that to hello this question is probably more directed at Andrew than I had the mother you can answer it as well about if Napoleon was a military genius how would he explain the decision to invade Russia which was surely one of the greatest military disasters yes he'd explain it I think in three three disasters the first of course was the typhoid that killed up to a hundred thousand of his troops in the central force that were attacked in in Russia the second was that he was kept being drawn or the brilliantly by the Russians further and further into Russia it's strategically he made that mistake he had a much larger army than than the Russian army and he put far too much belief into the idea that that was going to help him and and it's not true of course that he didn't know about the Russian winter he was a highly intelligent man who knew perfectly well about the Russian winter but by the time he left Moscow and fought the Battle of maloyaroslavets on the 25th of October 1812 he the next morning took the decision to take a great dogleg back via Smolensk and that was the SOI to Smolensk via the battlefield of Borodino and and that was the thing that one of the things that that wrecked him but the one of the genuine great world experts on this subject is in fact Adam because he's written a fantastic book on the subject so it'll be interesting to see what his answer to that question would be well the short answer was that he never wanted to make war on Russia he was just trying to frighten Alexander into submission which was pretty silly thing to do and he then found himself provoked but in fact he almost as many Russian modern Russian historians have made he almost had to fight Russia because he had you see Napoleon was a great tactician I would say but no strategist he had no long-term view and he had placed himself in a position with Russia where he only they had to fight Russia or sit in France and wait for Russia to invade and take over Poland and establish hegemony of Germany and he'd have to fight her in Germany and that would be difficult he you know by choosing he chose the wrong Ally he treated his ally badly because if you have an ally you don't then penalize them as he did with the Continental System and he was arrogant with allies he had a problem and I think this comes again down trees insecurity he had a problem with with diplomacy and communicating with people every time he made any kind of a treaty he always felt him show that he had won that he come on Travers so he always drove such a hala bargain that the default setting for the other side was river address and revenge and and you know from Tilsit onwards Russia was simply building up its army to to address Napoleon and he found himself in in a in a no-win situation he had to go in unless he had stepped back and allowed them in and then defeated them in Poland or Germany which he wasn't going to do because he would have felt his prestige was and you know comes down to this terrible insecurity into my mind anyway just there fascinating discussion and great fun - thank you I'm interested to know picking up this question about the polish interest in here don't we all have an interest in the man being greater than he possibly was we in brexit friends Britain feel proud that we sort of had a big part in knocking him out and we don't want to knock out a man whose second grade most of Europe that was knocked out by him wants him to be great because otherwise he wouldn't have knocked them out France wanted him to be great so they had all the ballyhoo of bringing him back when he was dead is there anyone who has an interest in Adams thesis and I'm riveted most clearly by the book absolutely it's very interesting one of the reasons we do talk about Napoleon and we are still writing into impact is because every nation in Europe has its napoleon narrative now this country it's it's much more nuanced - much more intelligent now but when I was game school in this gun you know the whole narrative was just as in 1940 Britain stood alone and defense of Europe and freedom etc against this terrible frightful ogre and well actually Britain was kept needling him because Britain did terribly well out of the whole Napoleonic Wars and it was all anyway wasn't the war against Napoleon it was part of a really a hundred years of struggle for supremacy in Europe and in the colonies so and every you know the poles have their narrative the Russians have their narrative you notice the first that tree otic war you know filthy Frenchmen invading holy Russia etc the Italians have their narrative the Germans said so you're absolutely right that there is this the everybody loves to love or to hate or to somehow see Napoleon as part of their of their own history and these things go very deep wouldn't you agree I totally there was anything just there thank you very much this evening I've just got two questions I mean one what would you say the personal similarities are between Napoleon and Hitler and to why I read your book on retreat from Moscow and it was still very unclear strategically why he had to abandon at least for me my understanding why he had to abandon Moscow and as a result losing his entire army in the process well the answer is the first is I think there's absolutely nothing that links him to Hitler in any sense he was Napoleon there wasn't a mean streak in his body he was chippy and offensive and therefore could not shout he could be callous when the situation demanded it but he never set out to upset humiliate hurt or certainly kill anybody and I think until degree on that he also didn't have any kind of ideological spur that of that kind and if anything he's a fighter see light of course yes which sets him wildly apart when his troops entered a town one of the first things they did was to give civil and religious liberties to the terms and indeed the DNA test suggests that he may have had some Semitic whether Jewish or Arab but certainly Middle Eastern or North African origin so I mean that's completely different leaving Moscow he couldn't have realistically stayed there he so far away from he was ahead of stage okay he was ruling from afar through his ester feds but they were being intercepted and more and more and he couldn't have fun you know he could have survived that but he would have been sitting there like a like an idiot and somebody would have taken power in France and he had to get out and he should have got out a lot not earlier I think we down to the last question now is that right John or have we got more time another five minutes how about that gentleman there thank you being French I felt terrible asking about Napoleon's insecurity but basically in social insecurity - to what extent would you say that Napoleon was manipulated by the woman that at least we all know his mother his sister Josephine with Vera's even Mary vishesh cow anyone else maybe that we haven't heard of I wouldn't say that he was ever I mean the only woman who did have an infant well his mother obviously when he was little but then he didn't really see much of her during his later years and [Music] Josephine certainly had an influence on him and a good beneficial influence she could calm him she was and he was at heart a very middle-class little ordinary man and he was very happy once he'd got over the passion and the horror of being betrayed by her they settled into what he himself said in V or V V tables was more he said and he was very happy and they'd sort of pet each other and touch each other and say yes yes the mecca cotton all this him and they loved each other and you know whenever he got into a stage he'd say now now and and and she would and you know she was a fantastic kondeh conduit between him and various peoples in cross ways or she and in many ways it was a tragedy that he did feel he had to repudiate her execution as well yes had a sort of some royalist friends and and and and a bit of political common sense basic sense of common sense choosing so I think that was that was tragic I mean I think the doggone thing is so so choked with mystery we'll never quite know what what happened and who meant to do what but wait last question over there yes thank you this may be an appropriate question sir to finish the evening on if you go to Elysium of a lead in Paris which in magnificent building you can own into the basement with the caskets etc you can I get a feeling of this kind of hole that Napoleon has on France which I struggle to think of any other country where they have a single individual that's in that kind of state and Churchill's in a grave in Bladen in Woodstock nel citizens in a casket in sand Paul's how do you think a wide as Napoleon's still have this kind of almost hold on France almost two hundred years after his death in this kind of almost mythical status well it surely has to be because he's an ordinary little middle-class man good question sir there is something in that he know he created Mon France and he's the one well he was and some extent until recently he still was the one thing I mean what that French Revolution was the most traumatic event for the French nation and you know one part of the nation tried to murder the other and repudiated her way of life you couldn't go back to you know to where it had been before and Napoleon and all those people who worked with him tried to create a fusion of everything that was best of the ancien régime the revolution and the future and although he messed it up in many ways he he did and it's very very important what's so interesting in 1814 ironically it was the institution's that he and his associates had created that brought him down because the army first of all that the Chamber's that he had created voted his dethronement believing this was best for France and the army that he had created which worshipped him were not going to fight on anymore because they weren't going to fight in the Civil War he had he had actually created national institutions and so for France which as you know then in the nineteenth century had but you know how many changes of government and new constitutions and indeed in the 20th century Napoleon has served as a rallying point and a symbol of the greatness of France and of all classes and everything coming together and and that's why I Philippe had this mod he brought back an ancestor by messenger so you know not all against him ladies and gentlemen I think that answer and so much else that Adam said today reminds us that despite himself actually Adam is a bona Portis I I think I I'd like to I'd like you all to invite you all to to get this fantastic this fantastic book about this ordinary middle-class man and and and to get Church of the early to back is actually removed Churchill is that he can sign his book but it turned out when we opened the boxes that I'd already signed all of my actually know please give please come and buy this wonderful work thank you so much

Channel: How To Academy Mindset

Views: 66,134

Keywords: Napoleon, Andrew Roberts, Adam Zamoyski, Polticis, War, History

Id: dSPtBW9zNMw

Length: 66min 15sec (3975 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018