NAPOLEON by GEORGES LEFEBVRE - Book Review

John Tarttelin

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• Publié par: Souladream
• Publié le: 03 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 114
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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NAPOLEON by Georges Lefebvre
(1936)
Book Review



By John Tarttelin
Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society
Legion of Merit 
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Although Lefebvre was a Marxist historian writing in 1935-1936, his
book is nevertheless the 'Great Man' type of work that the Marxist school
were very much against. He wrote while Hitler was in power in Germany
and there are conscious and subconscious allusions to the dictator
throughout this book. He uses the Nietzschean phrase 'the will to power'
several times in reference to Napoleon as if it was simply Napoleon's
unbridled ego that led to the many wars of the early C19th. He lays the
blame for war squarely at Napoleon's feet.

Few people realize that after Nietzsche died in 1900, his sister Elisabeth
gathered together his unfinished notebooks and published them as The
Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of all Values. She was feted by
the Nazis and told Hitler that her brother would have welcomed him and
Nazis philosophy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Yet
the philosopher's views as espoused by his sister, were very much in
favour with Hitler and his cronies. This support with such a highly
regarded academic background appealed to the dictator's vanity. In return
for this endorsement, Elisabeth became a virtual sainted grandmother of
the Third Reich. However, she reinterpreted many of Nietzsche's ideas
and warped his views in order to please her powerful new patron.

Elisabeth inferred that her brother Friedrich would have been a supporter
of Hitler's anti-semitism. In fact, Nietzsche ended his friendship with
Wagner because of the latter's anti-semitism and spoke of the anti-semite
as being the lowliest type of person - the exact opposite of what Elisabeth
was saying to Hitler. The Nazi dictator's own philosophy of Social
Darwinianism - that the strongest should survive and that the devil could
take the hindmost - could be bolstered by the now warped ideas behind
the theory of the will to power, hence Hitler made use of it.

Thus Nietszche became the so-called 'Philospher of the Third Reich' and
has often been unfairly denigrated subsequently because of this.

Hitler persecuted and murdered the Jews - Napoleon gave them equal 
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rights, and freed them from unfair restrictions throughout the territories
under his control. And he was the first person to suggest that they should
be given a homeland of their own in the Holy Land.

Napoleon was unlike Hitler, Stalin and Mao in other respects. Those three
dictators eliminated all opposition. Despite repeated treachery from
Talleyrand, Fouché, Bernadotte and many others, Napoleon did not have
them executed. Indeed, he even invited Cadoudal - who have been
plotting to murder him - to become an officer in his Army. Also, despite
innumerable assassination attempts upon his life by D'Artois, the
'legitmate' heir to the vanished Bourbon throne, paid for by English gold,
Napoleon did not respond in kind by trying to murder the British
monarch.

Lefebvre goes out of his way to blame Napoleon for 'all the wars' and
states that the Coalitions against him were only reacting to his plans of
conquest - this despite the fact that Napoleon was usually attacked first
by the other powers before he crushed them in battle. Neither does
Lefebvre mention that after 1805, Napoleon could easily have deposed
Francis of Austria; after 1806 he could have deposed Frederick William
of Prussia - but he did neither; and after 1807 he could have really put the
Tsar in his place - yet Alexander was treated incredibly leniently at Tilsit.

Lefebvre, despite his main Orwellian thesis i.e. 'Napoleon bad - Allies
good', then goes on to describe Tsar Alexander's ambitions and empire-
building plans and his unsated desire for more and more territory to add
to his beloved Russian homeland. (Long before Alexander, the Russians
sent the Second Kamchatka expedition to Alaska from 1733-1743 and
soon had vessels trapping sea otters off the Alaskan coast and
subsequently down the Pacific Northwest as far south as California.) In
fact, Lefebvre goes into great detail about the Tsar's plan to attack France
in 1811 - the very best and most detailed explanation of Alexander's
treachery - when he was supposed to be an ally of Napoleon - I have ever
read. This casts Napoleon's invasion of 1812 in a completely new light. In 
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the end, both powers were determined upon war and it was simply a
question of who could get their strike in first.

Lefebvre states that Napoleon wanted a quick battle in 1812 and then a
new settlement with Alexander to ensure the success of his Continental
System. Lefebvre's grasp of the economic, social and cultural aspects of
this period in European history is superb - be it about Prussia, Russia,
Austria, 'Germany' or even the minor states. His use of detailed records of
imports, exports and trade statistics add to the fullest explanation of each
powers diplomatic and trading status I have ever come across. His
conclusion that England greedily viewed the seas as totally its own
domain should come as a surprise to no one. He could have made more of
the fact that with its command of the seas, no other power was able to
grab as much land and as many colonies as the British, then and
subsequently, even outdoing Russia in the end.

Lefebvre's Napoleon is an erudite and scholarly work that still reads like
a novel - it is exciting, thought provoking and stimulating. Certainly five
stars.

© 2014 John Tarttelin FINS

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