Omega124
Challenging Fate
What would have happened if Napoleon won? Disscus.
Hypothetical situation: Waterloo
- Thread starter Omega124
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LightSpectra
me autem minui
Do we really have to go through counter-factuals once a month without fail on this board? Haven't we gone through all the reasons why these exercises are impossible and worthless already?
Indeed.
Well, first of all, for that to happen he shouldn't have dozed off sitting in his chair while viewing the battlefield. (And ofcourse, as usual, one or two of his generals shouldn't have been mucking about on the battlefield, effectively helping the enemy.)
Other than that, the 100 days were doomed from the start anyway...
Well, first of all, for that to happen he shouldn't have dozed off sitting in his chair while viewing the battlefield. (And ofcourse, as usual, one or two of his generals shouldn't have been mucking about on the battlefield, effectively helping the enemy.)
Other than that, the 100 days were doomed from the start anyway...
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
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Because they're fun to think about, that's why!
The nature of the defeat would probably have a very great impact on the resolution of the Congress of Vienna, so it's not as clear-cut as mah boiiiii Ag wants to make it. A humiliating defeat for British arms, with the slack being picked up by (presumably?) the Austrians and Russians, certainly adds weight to the Humboldtian argument for a harsh peace, and at the very least it will make a Congress of Aachen out of the question.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Not if Poland has anything to say about it, they won't!
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
the french will still lose at a later date.
Verbose
Deity
Yes, but Dachs is right that it will change the diplomatic gambit once the defeat is complete. And it's not just that the rest of us won't be subjected to 200 years of British chest-thumping over Waterloo.
Could be Austrian or Russian instead, which arguable might not be better...Let's say it's the Russians doing the heavy lifting. The occupation of Paris left an indelible mark on people as Russia's entry into western European politics for real, with cossacks patrolling the streets. Now imagine it's the Russians who have delivered the coup de grace? Imagine they have Napoleon himself under lock and key? Will they make a martyr out of him or what?
Yes, well, the British will do that, won't they? Actually there are historians which give credit where credit is due, like a recent history on Russia's defeat of Napoleon in 1812, which gave the campaign against Napoleon its momentum and made his removal from a position of power possible in the first place. Napoleon was well aware of Russia's power - which is why he fled to the British, deludedly expecting some act of grace from that quarter.
Verbose
Deity
Make a martyr of him? Well, the British sort of went out of their way to NOT do that.
Unfortunately the job as Imperial jailer fell to poor hapless Hudson Lowe. Napoleon both would and could self-consciously cast himself as a martyr to English perfidity, adding to the Bonapartiste mythology of 19th c. France.
Quackers
The Frog
This is always strange - why didn't we put Napoleon on trial and execute him?
Verbose
Deity
Because that would have given him a platform, and made him a martyr in France. None of which a good idea. He might actually have preferred it, rather than being packed off to a speck in the south Atlantic to waste away as was done.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
So go touch yourself in the bathroom to them and leave the rest of us alone about it.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Because one does not execute deposed heads of state as a matter of course; that he was an enemy did not necessarily make him a criminal.
This is unintentional comedy. You know, because it's France?
Agreed with Traitorfish. Just because Napoleon was an enemy head-of-state does not make him a war criminal, and killing him would have just made him a martyr anyway.
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
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What is it with French jokes? France has a long and mostly proud military history, and though they fell quickly in 1940, Denmark almost immediately surrendered, and many other nations folded quickly, but you don't hear constant jokes about them.
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