British historian Anthony Pagden
Two Views of
Life, Enduring, Unyielding
Napoleon Boneparte:[quote]
"I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law...."
The Egyptian expedition of 1798-99
In March 1798, Bonaparte proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt, then a province of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to protect French trade interests and undermine Britain's access to India. The Directory, although troubled by the scope and cost of the enterprise, readily agreed to the plan in order to remove the popular general from the center of power.
An unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of a large group of scientists assigned to the invading French force: among the discoveries that resulted was the finding of the Rosetta Stone. This deployment of intellectual resources is considered by some an indication of Bonaparte's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment....In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the support of the Egyptian populace, Bonaparte also issued proclamations casting himself as a liberator of the people from Ottoman oppression, and praising the precepts of Islam.
Bonaparte's expedition seized Malta from the Knights of Saint John on 9 June and then landed successfully at Alexandria on 01 July....
After landing on the coast of Egypt, the first battle was against the Mamelukes, an old power in the Middle East, approximately 4 miles from the pyramids. Bonaparte's forces were greatly outnumbered by the advanced cavalry, about 25,000 to 100,000, but Bonaparte came out on top, mainly due to his strategy. Men formed hollow squares, each side facing out. This made it possible to keep cannons and supplies safely on the inside, while the soldiers could fire in every direction on the outside. This made a very strong defense, and left it possible for many soldiers to escape to fight again. In all, only 300 French were killed, as opposed to approximately 6,000 Egyptians.
While the battle on land was a resounding French victory, the ships that had landed Bonaparte and his army sailed back to France; but, a fleet of ships of the line that had come with them remained to support the army along the coast. On 01 August, the British fleet found the French warships anchored in a strong defensive position in the bay of Abukir. The French believed that they were open to attack on only one side, the other being protected by the shore. However, the arriving British fleet under Horatio Nelson managed to slip half their ships in between the land and the French line, thus attacking from both sides. All but two of the French vessels were captured or destroyed. Only the Guillaume Tell with rear admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and the Généreux escaped. The Guillaume Tell was caught not much later in the course of the British conquest of Malta. Many blame the French loss in this Battle of the Nile on French admiral Francois-Paul Brueys, who came up with the failed defensive strategy. However, the French ships were also undermanned, the officers demoralized, and Nelson's attack was a surprise. In all, about 250 British and 1,700 French were killed. With Bonaparte land-bound, his goal of strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean Sea was frustrated, but his army nonetheless succeeded in consolidating power in Egypt, although it faced repeated nationalist uprisings.
In early 1799, he led the army into the Ottoman province of Syria, now modern Israel, and defeated numerically superior Ottoman forces in several battles, but his army was weakened by disease and poor supplies. He was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre, and was forced to return to Egypt in May. In order to speed up the retreat, Bonaparte took the controversial step of killing prisoners and plague-stricken men along the way. His supporters have argued that this decision was necessary given the continuing harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces.
Back in Egypt, on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir. This partially redressed his reputation from the naval defeat there a year earlier.
With the Egyptian campaign stagnating, and political instability developing back home, Bonaparte abandoned Egypt for Paris in August of 1799, leaving his troops behind under Marshal Kleber. It has been suggested that Sir Sidney Smith and other British commanders in the Mediterranean helped Bonaparte evade the British blockade, thinking that he might support the Royalists back in France, but there's no solid evidence in support of this.
The remaining troops, angry at Bonaparte and the French government for having left them behind, were supposed to be honorably evacuated under the terms of a treaty Kleber had negotiated with Smith in early 1800. However, British admiral Keith reneged and sent an amphibious assault force of 30,000 Mamelukes against Kleber. The Mamelukes were defeated at the battle of Heliopolis in March 1800, and Kleber then suppressed an insurrection in Cairo. But he was assassinated in June 1800 by a Syrian student; and command of the French army went to general Menou. Menou held command until August 1801, when, under continual harassment by British and Ottoman forces, and after the loss of 13,500 men (mostly to disease), he capitulated to the British. Under the terms of his surrender, the French army was repatriated in British ships, along with a priceless hoard of Egyptian antiquities.
�The coup of 18 Brumaire
While in Egypt, Bonaparte tried to keep a close eye on European affairs, relying largely on newspapers and dispatches that arrived only irregularly. On 23 August 1799, he abruptly set sail for France, taking advantage of the temporary departure of British ships blockading French coastal ports.
Although Napoleon³ was later accused by political opponents of abandoning his troops, his departure actually had been ordered by the Directory, which had suffered a series of military defeats to the forces of the Second Coalition, and feared an invasion.
...The civilizing missions of the West come in for acerbic commentary, notably Napoleon's misbegotten Egyptian campaign, which Mr. Pagden cites as a dress rehearsal for later disasters, right up to the present. Napoleon arrived with his fleet at Alexandria, flamboyantly proclaiming a new era of civil rights and human dignity, and keen to show how the principles of revolutionary France dovetailed with the teachings of the Koran. The experiment failed.
As for Napoleon's expressed reverence for Islam's holiest text, a member of the Divan, or Imperial Council, in Cairo wrote, "To respect the Koran means to glorify it, and one glorifies it only by believing in what it contains."
For their part, the French marveled at the indolence and backwardness of the Egyptians. They brought back to the West an image of the Muslim East as "a land rotting in despotic lethargy, constrained by a simple and savage religion that denied half of its peoples their humanity and in so doing prevented any possibility of progress and enlightenment."
Two centuries later Mr. Pagden sees little prospect of progress or enlightenment, not as long as a domineering radical-Islamic religion determines the shape of civil society in the Islamic world. Like the Greeks and the Persians, the countries of the West and the Islamic East stare unblinking across a great divide, their notions of citizenship and political life irrevocably opposed.
"The society of Islam is ultimately based not upon human volition or upon contract but upon a [so-called] 'divine decree'," Mr. Pagden writes. "In the societies of the West, by contrast, every aspect of life has been conceived as a question of human choice.*" Never the twain shall meet.
Mr. Pagden is scathing about the idea that moderate voices might prevail, since the very notion of moderation appeals primarily to one side in the argument. "Who says that tolerance, dialogue and understanding are virtues?" he asks. "The answer is invariably: secular² Westerners."
So here we are, after 2,500 years, back in the same place. On one side stand the liberal democracies of the West, convinced that their Enlightenment values and political ideas apply to all peoples everywhere. On the other side, a restless and aggrieved Islamic world defines itself as a vast community of faith, its members convinced that their beliefs, too, are universal. It may take another 2,500 years to sort this out.
_______________*: The principle of FREE CHOICE, or "Free-Agency" is a basic God-given commandment. Satan wanted precisely the opposite, demanding complete control over every aspect of our life, whilst God in His loving wisdom proclaimed that this was necessary for the growth of His children. This is why the Vatican has always opposed Communism so vehemently.
It may have been responsible for mankind's downfall in the Beginning of times in the Garden; but, it has remained also the only means by which man can mature and copy Christ's example of Love (through paradoxically a free and unforced obedience to God's Authority and those truly appointed by Him).
²: "Who says that tolerance, dialogue and understanding are virtues?" I might add that so does our present Pope, Pope Benedict XVI
³:
The Napoleonic Code was adopted throughout much of Europe and remained in force after Napoleon's defeat. Professor Dieter Langewiesche of the University of Tübingen describes the code as a "revolutionary project" which spurred the development of bourgeois society in Germany by expanding the right to own property and breaking the back of feudalism. Langewiesche also credits Napoleon with reorganizing what had been the Holy Roman Empire made up of more than 1,000 entities into a more streamlined network of 40 states providing the basis for the German Confederation and the future unification of Germany under the German Empire in 1871.
In mathematics
Napoleon is traditionally given credit for discovering and proving Napoleon's theorem, although there is no specific evidence that he did so. The theorem
states that if equilateral triangles are constructed on the sides of any triangle (all outward or all inward), the centres of those equilateral triangles
themselves form an equilateral triangle.
Moreover,
Napoleon's nickname of le petit caporal is confusing, as non-francophones mistakenly take petit as literally meaning "small"; in fact, it is an affectionate term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers (for example, petit(e) ami(e) means "boyfriend" (without 'e's) and "girlfriend" (with 'e's) in French). He also surrounded himself with the soldiers of his elite guard, who were always six feet tall or taller.
Also, some probably wish Napoleon had achieved his unrealized goal:
"to make it a law that only those lawyers and attorneys should receive fees who had won their cases. How much litigation would have been prevented by such a measure! For it is quite obvious that there is not a lawyer who, after a first look at the case, would not turn it down if it seemed doubtful. It need not be feared that a man who earns his living from his work might take on a case for the simple pleasure of hearing himself talk; yet even if he did, he would harm no one but himself. . . . I am convinced to this day that the idea is brilliant."
BORN in the family house of the Bonapartes, in what is now the Place Letizia, Ajaccio, on the 15th November 1784, Jerome was the youngest of the eight children surviving out of thirteen borne to Charles Bonaparte (or rather Carlo Maria di Buonaparte) by Maria Letizia Ramolino (Leticia). The Buonapartes were a large Corsican Roman-Catholic family. One son became a priest; another a famous naturalist (Charles-Lucien)....Then there was Joseph Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio, elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was made one-time "King of Spain" (but exiled himself after "Waterloo" to America).
Joseph cohabited with Anna Savage (de la Folie) at POINT BREEZE, NJ, USA., where Joseph lived for 17 years before returning to Europe.*4
Their first daughter Pauline-Anne died as a young child; but, their second daughter, Caroline Charlotte lived to have 5 children with her husband Zebulon Benton. Two of those children were female, named Charlotte and Zénaide.
Zénaide married Emile LaCoste. Their son, Felix Joseph LaCoste married a woman named Isobelle. They had a son, Maurice LaCoste, a reknowned NY diplomat.
ref: bio, images after p. 82 + page 217
*4: Both Bonapartes were finally interred in Sacred, hallowed ground, beside each other in the Paris Church, Les Invalides.
When exhumed on the 15 OCTOBER 1840, Napoleaon Bonaparte's body was found perfectly preserved and intact! "in perfect state" :
Baltimore's high-spirited, independent and controversial Betsy Patterson married Napoleon's younger brother Jerome in 1803 and bore him a son. The history of Elizabeth Bonaparte, who became, by her marriage with Jerome Bonaparte, the sister-in-law of the Emperor Napoleon, was written down in 1879.
Lorenzo Capelletti writes in the MAY 2008 "30 Days", pp.46-48:
"During his visit to Savona and Genoa on 17 - 18 May 2008, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the long exile which Pope Pius VII was forced to endure in Savona from the summer of 1809 to that of 1812, when by order of Napoleon, he was moved on and forced to residence at Fontainebleau from whence he returned to Rome, only after another two years....
*5: One should remember that Pius VII...was the Pope of the Concordats with the French and Cisalpine Republics between 1801 and 1803, and also the person who had consecrated Napoleon as Emperor in Paris in 1804....
Rome was occupied by the French in early 1808 AND IN JULY OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE POPE HIMSELF WAS SIEZED AND TAKEN TO SAVONA AFTER A JOURNEY OF SIX FATIGUING WEEKS OF WANDERING, SINCE IT WAS ONLY ON THE WAY THAT NAPOLEON WAS TOLD OF THE CAPTURE MADE BY HIS VENERABLE GENERALS...."
Fernando Ariza/The New York
Times
First Chapter: 'Worlds at War' (March 26, 2008)
'Worlds at War,' by Anthony Pagden: Divided and Conquered (March 23, 2008)
Tino Rossi : l'Ajaccienne
Patre Nostru ...in celu,
