MR B NDLOVU

{0777823497}

MBIZO HIGH SCHOOL

HISTORY DEPARTMENT

To what extent should Napoleon Bonaparte’s rule in France from 1799 to

1814 be described as “ruthless and dictatorial”?
Question analogy

To be Ruthless means to be cruel, harsh and oppressive. To be Dictatorial

means personal rule, autocratic, intolerant and tyrannical.
Napoleon was both ruthless and dictatorial because he established his highly
autocratic, intolerant and tyrannical rule in France in complete disregard for
revolutionary ideals of democratic participation and representative democracy.
Although he was supposedly a part of a three-man triumvirate, Napoleon was the
only one who mattered as the First Consul. All executive power was vested in him
and he had direct and indirect control of the legislative process. It was direct in so
far as the deliberations of the State Council could only yield laws for France if he
gave his consent. It was indirect but powerful all the same in the sense that he
was the only one with the authority to nominate members to the State Council.
His political and administrative reforms demonstrated that he was driven by a
selfish desire to secure and sustain his own power. Napoleon’s rule was
dictatorial because central and local government were directly under his control.
The government officials in the Senate, Tribunate, Mayors and Prefects were
chosen directly and indirectly by him and were expected to implement his
policies. Napoleon was dictatorial through his control of the Legislative process as
laws were initiated by a Council of State chosen by him. The laws would then be
discussed and voted by the Tribunate and legislative body. All these bodies were
chosen by the Napoleon-appointed senate. They were however chosen from a list
of candidates elected by the voters. The fact that those elections were often
stage-managed to ensure the choosing of candidates loyal to Napoleon enabled
him to impose his dictatorship over France.
Even the possession of that executive power was not enough to satisfy his
boundless ambitions for personal power as he wasted no time in having himself
proclaimed Emperor of the French. That followed hot on the heels of his earlier
decision to convert himself to First Consul for Life. This self-aggrandisement was
followed by the soon-to-be-familiar plebiscite. The plebiscites were really
pageantries that merely confirmed accomplished facts giving them a veneer of
democratic legitimacy. Their outcome was probably pre-determined which is
why they were held in the first place. Napoleon thus became emperor which was
a fact that flew in the face of revolutionary ideals of equality and ‘people’s
power’. It was also a mockery of his oft-stated commitment to ‘careers open to
talent’. France was now compelled to put up with the dynastic succession of
Bonapartes even if they were not necessarily the best for the job.
The very fact of establishing an empire effectively denied other people the
opportunity to rise to the highest political position in the land. The revolution had
destroyed the monarchical or dynastic political system and by restoring it
Napoleon had re-wound the clock back to the pre-revolutionary era. It also
ensured that the highest political position in the land could only be achieved by
Napoleon and those in his family line. The closest Napoleon came to sharing
power ideal was by re-organising national administration and appointing a
Council of State prefects and sub-prefects for the departments he had divided
France into. However there was no real power-sharing as the administrators
were his appointees and therefore acted on his behalf and not that of the general
population. It is therefore impossible to talk of the equality of opportunities when
Napoleon had restored a nepotistic and hereditary system that benefited only his
family line and not necessarily the man best qualified as envisaged in the
revolution’s ideal of equality of opportunity. Napoleon ultimately showed neither
respect for the people’s revolutionary right to choose their rulers nor his
self-proclaimed concept of ‘careers open to talent’.
In true dictatorial fashion, Napoleon ruled by decree. He has been credited with
the issuing of eighty thousand letters and decrees over a fifteen year period.
Though that figure might be somewhat controversial, it does however serve to
underline Napoleon’s excessive reliance on decrees to the extent that they
became an important source of the French law of that period. It also shows how
much France had come to be governed through the autocratic discretion of its
emperor.
He was ruthless because he also employed repression as a tool of consolidating
his personal grip on power. To this end he re-introduced spies, the secret police,
censorship and the dreaded lettres de catchet. Thus imprisonment without trial
which his predecessors had abolished became a reality once more. With the
restoration of censorship, newspapers, drama and other forms of entertainment
were carefully scrutinised for seditious content. The writer A. Guerard has
claimed that Napoleon’s decree on censorship led to sixty newspapers being
outlawed out of the seventy-three that were in circulation. According to Vincent
Cronin, freedom of expression was severely suppressed to the extent that only
four out of thousands of newspapers, journals and articles were allowed to
publish in 1811. Critics and dissidents were silenced and kept under control by
that censorship and by a strict police force headed by Fouche’. C. Jones also states
that only four newspapers remained in circulation in 1811. The picture that
images is that of an autocrat entrenching his authority by suppressing all
dissenting voices.
Even his so-called progressive policies were achieved through dictatorship and a
ruthless determination to cement his power. For example Napoleon used his
dictatorial powers to give France a codified and uniform system of law (Code
Napoleon) which confirmed the rights of private property and the land
settlement of the Revolution. This was complemented by the Concordat with the
pope by which the Church accepted the loss of its lands confiscated during the
revolution from 1789. The Code Napoleon and the Concordat were simply
populist measures which revealed Napoleon’s ruthless determination to entrench
his personal power. The concordat won him the support of Catholic Christians
after he recognised Catholicism as the dominant religion in France. However it
gave him power over the church as he appointed the bishops. On the other hand
the concordat also won him the support of the bourgeoisie and peasants who
were now re-assured of the permanency of their ownership of the former lands
of Church and nobility. In the words of David Thomson, “Bonaparte ensured,
above all, that there would be no counter-revolution - and this rallied middle
classes and peasants alike behind the Consulate.
 MR B NDLOVU
{0777823497}

MBIZO HIGH SCHOOL

HISTORY DEPARTMENT
" “The greatest achievement of Napoleon was a reform of the
French law. ” Critically examine this view with reference to the
Code Napoleon.

The Code was a huge achievement because of its success in giving France a
written and uniform system of law which cleared out legal confusion. Before
there can be any talk of equality before the law, the law must first of all be clearly
articulated, laid down and uniformly applied. Before then, there had only been a
confused and uncertain hotchpotch of royal edicts, feudal customs and church
laws which were uncertain, unevenly applied and unwritten. Civil Law was
divided into three categories namely Personal Status, Property and Acquisition of
Property in accordance with the main ideals of the French Revolution of
advancing individual rights.
The Code was also a big achievement as it gave legal recognition to the
expropriation and sale of the nobles’ and churches’ lands that occurred during
the revolution and re-assured the peasants and the bourgeoisie of the
permanency of their ownership. In the words of David Thomson, “Bonaparte
ensured, above all, that there would be no counter-revolution - and this rallied
middle classes and peasants alike behind the Consulate."
The Code was certainly the greatest achievement of Napoleon because it outlived
his other achievements and was even copied by many other European countries.
While Napoleon was celebrated as a conqueror, his great military victories were
only temporary and they were even reversed by the defeats he later suffered
during his lifetime, even his empire was abolished but many aspects of the Code
have remained in use even to this day. France’s civil law still retains aspects of
the code. It is still in use in many European countries as well as former French
colonies like Quebec and Louisiana.
It was also his biggest achievement because it was much more positive and
progressive when compared to some of his more repressive policies. Despite its
shortcomings especially on gender inequality and failure to afford workers
protection from employers, the Code was still more positive especially in
comparison to repressive measures like his autocracy and press censorship.
Napoleon cemented his dictatorship by establishing his empire in 1804 and by
1811; he had closed down most newspapers to silence any criticism of his rule.
Viewed from a socialist perspective the Code which was capitalist in outlook and
emphasised the rights of employers ahead of those of workers enterprise was not
such a good development. The Code was highly repressive as it banned labour
unions and gave protection to employers who turned out to be exploitative of
their workers. Workers were left in a desperate position where they could not
effectively bargain for higher wages and better working conditions without
representative bodies. Many books of this period detail how workers suffered
great exploitation and poor working conditions as government turned a blind
eye. The workers’ discontent that eventually led to the bloody civil war in 1848
was really a legacy of the government’s failure to give them legal protection and
the Code was partly to blame.
From a liberal and feminist point of view, the Code was a blow to gender equality
and egalitarian principles of the French revolution as it re-established male
superiority over women. The Code was retrogressive in as far it placed men at the
head of the families and regarded women as inferior. It was also retrogressive in
as far it decided that property should be inherited by the eldest son. All of this
represented a reversal of the progress of the revolution which had established
equality between the sexes and in the division of property among surviving
children. According to David Thomson, "the authority of the father over his wife,
his children, and the property of the family was strengthened, as against the
revolutionary tendency towards equality of persons and equal division of
property."
In conclusion, while Napoleon was famous for many achievements including his
military victories, the Code stands out as the greatest due to its lasting impact in
France and Europe. Despite its shortcomings it compares favourably to the
repressive measures that he also came up with during his 15-year reign.

MR B NDLOVU
{0777823497}

MBIZO HIGH SCHOOL

HISTORY DEPARTMENT
How far did Napoleon Bonaparte achieve his aims in domestic
policy?
Napoleon was highly successful in his quest to achieve personal power following
as demonstrated by his success in achieving his empire after starting of as part of
a triumvirate in the Consulate. In 1804, Napoleon fulfilled his quest for personal
power when he created his empire after destroying the Republican Consulate
which he had helped create after overthrowing the Directory in 1799. He had
started as part of a 3-man triumvirate in the Consulate after his overthrow of the
Directory in 1799. Even as First Consul he wielded so much power through direct
and indirect control of the legislative process, appointments of key officials and
highly centralized control of the country. The creation of the empire cemented
his dictatorship by ensuring that he would not have to give up power as is the
norm in a republic. He could only hand it down to his descendants.
He also achieved great success in establishing stability and order in France after
the chaos and instability of the revolutionary period. Besides maintaining a
strong police state under Fouche, Napoleon used populist measures to fulfil his
quest for order and stability in France. A good example is the codified and
uniform system of law (Code Napoleon) which confirmed the rights of private
property and the land settlement of the Revolution. This was complemented by
the Concordat with the pope by which the Church accepted the loss of its lands
confiscated during the revolution from 1789. The Code Napoleon and the
Concordat were simply populist measures which revealed Napoleon’s ruthless
determination to entrench his personal power. The concordat won him the
support of Catholic Christians after he recognised Catholicism as the dominant
religion in France. However it gave him power over the church as he appointed
the bishops. On the other hand the concordat also won him the support of the
bourgeoisie and peasants who were now re-assured of the permanency of their
ownership of the former lands of Church and nobility. In the words of David
Thomson, “Bonaparte ensured, above all, that there would be no
counter-revolution - and this rallied middle classes and peasants alike behind the
Consulate."
Napoleon also achieved great success in his quest to crush all dissent to his own
rule. He employed repression as a tool of consolidating his personal grip on
power by re-introducing spies, secret police, censorship and the dreaded lettres
de catchet. Thus imprisonment without trial which his predecessors had
abolished became a reality once more. With the restoration of censorship,
newspapers, drama and other forms of entertainment were carefully scrutinised
for seditious content. Historian A. Guerard states that Napoleon banned 60 out of
the 73 newspapers that were in circulation. According to Vincent Cronin, freedom
of expression was severely suppressed to the extent that only four out of
thousands of newspapers, journals and articles were allowed to publish in 1811.
Critics and dissidents were silenced and kept under control by that censorship
and by a strict police force headed by Fouche’. C. Jones also states that only four
newspapers remained in circulation in 1811. The picture that images is that of an
autocrat entrenching his authority by suppressing all dissenting voices.
Napoleon was highly successful in his quest to bring the Church under the state’s
control. He achieved this through the Concordat with the Pope which was also
important in reconciling the Church and the state after the fall-out when
revolutionaries first attempt to reduce religious influence before attempting to
destroy Christianity during the Reign of Terror (1793-4). The Concordat
strengthened his position as he won the support of the pre-dominantly Catholic
Christians after recognising Catholicism as the dominant religion in France. He
also won the support of other Christians by recognising other religions. The
church not only accepted the loss of its property during the Revolution but more
importantly Napoleon got the power to appoint Bishops and pay their salaries
too. Such developments brought the church firmly under his control.
Napoleon achieved a large measure of success in promoting socio-economic
development after the uncertainties that had plagued the revolution. Napoleon
also had a genuine desire to uplift the lives of the French. Among various
measures he adopted to achieve that was the promotion of education. Many
public schools were opened and he went as far as giving France a university. He
also introduced his celebrated ‘careers open to talent’ policymaking it possible for
all people to employ their skills for the betterment of the nation. He led the way
by harnessing the expertise of different personalities from different backgrounds
and political persuasions including Bourbon loyalists, clericals and
revolutionaries in various projects. Examples include Talleyrand and Fouché who
had all served previous administrations. Lawyers from all kinds of backgrounds
lent their expertise to the drafting of the famous Code Napoleon. His crowning
edifice was the Legion of Honour which was created to reward all those who had
served France with great distinction in their chosen field of endeavour. Such
people were bestowed titles and became the new aristocracy even though some
of them came from the humblest backgrounds.
In the final analysis napoleon was highly successful in achieving his aims in the
domestic sphere whether in gaining personal power or in promoting order and
socio-economic development. Even if he ultimately failed in his quest to ensure a
lasting Bonapartist legacy in power, it was because of military defeat outside
France rather because of any domestic failures.

MR B. NDLOVU
{0777823497}

MBIZO HIGH SCHOOL

HISTORY DEPARTMENT

“Napoleon Bonaparte’s downfall was inevitable.” How far do you

agree with this assertion?

Napoleon’s downfall was made inevitable because in the final analysis his
opponents had vastly superior resources in the long run. Napoleon had waged
wars which he supported by looting and demanding reparations from those that
he conquered but against the combined resources of the Austrian, British,
Prussian and Russian governments even that was not enough to save him from
eventual defeat. His arch-enemy Britain’s apparently bottomless reserves funded
various European coalitions and assisted the Portuguese and Spanish guerilla
campaigns against Napoleon. He later spoke of the “Spanish ulcer” which sapped
the energies of his ‘Grand Army’. Napoleon’s frustrations at his failure to
overcome the British led to his ambitious but ill-conceived Continental System
which aimed to strangle the British by preventing them from trading with the
European continent. It only hurt Europe and turned states against him including
his former ally Russia. In 1812, Russia responded with a successful scorched earth
policy which deprived Napoleon’s army of provisions and brought his defeat by
Europe ever closer.
Recent European history had shown that those who maintained themselves in
power through force ultimately lost it when they were unable to command
sufficient force to maintain it. In France itself the likes of Robespierre who
seemed invincible during the Reign of Terror were soon victims of the same
guillotine they had used to eliminate their opponents. The Directory which
seemed to have mastered the art of subverting popular will by annulling election
results lost its battle to survive after being overthrown by Napoleon who had
sustained it through armed force. Napoleon had got to power through the
superior force he enjoyed through his control of the army and while domestic
opposition was weak, the superiority of his external European enemies
eventually brought him down.

Napoleon was doomed to fail because his popularity rested on military victories
abroad which could not be permanently guaranteed or sustained. Napoleon very
well knew that his fame rested on success in the military campaigns which were
also an important source of employment for the lower classes and also for
propping up the French economy through loot and reparations from conquered
territories. Consequently, he had little choice but to continue waging wars but his
task got ever harder because with time his opponents wizened to his tactics.
Battles and wars became harder to win and inevitably the question became when
not if he could be defeated. The day of reckoning did eventually arrive in 1814
when he was soundly defeated by the coalition of European states.

Napoleon’s downfall was also made inevitable by the fact that with time local
populations in states that he fought would not support him forever once they
realized his true motives. Like the revolutionary armies before him, the French
had achieved so much success against European armies on the back of support
they received from local populations that had welcomed them as liberators.
Riding on the revolutionary propaganda of “liberty, equality and fraternity”, the
French had been received as liberators from tyrannical Austrian rule in Italy and
Belgium. However the tide began to turn with populations resisting the French
whose true colours emerged as they looted, demanded reparations and
conscripted people to fight in their armies. It has been said that half of Napoleon’s
five hundred thousand -strong army that invaded Russia in 1812 were foreigners
who had been conscripted from conquered territories and under such
circumstances, the soldiers’ loyalty could not always be counted upon.
Napoleon’s downfall was made inevitable by the fact that monarchical Europe
would never reconcile itself to a regime built upon the principles of the French
Revolution which threatened their own existence. European rulers could never
reconcile themselves to Napoleon because he was the product of the French
Revolution which abolished a monarchical government akin to their own. French
armies engaged in a campaign to dismantle the foundations of monarchical rule
in the territories they conquered by replacing rulers, abolishing feudalism and
introducing legal equality. In essence, Napoleon’s war with Europe had become a
struggle between the new socio-economic and political system generated by the
French revolution on one hand, and the old monarchical order. At that time,
Napoleon was doomed to fail because the forces of monarchical absolutism had
not been as sufficiently weakened in the rest of Europe as they had been in
France after 1789. Furthermore he had undermined his own cause among the
lower classes who could have continued supporting him through looting and
conscription.

Napoleon’s position was ultimately the victim of the very forces of nationalism,
liberty and equality that his campaigns had helped unleash in the various
European territories. TAs shown above, Napoleon and the French armies helped
spread in conquered territories the ideals of nationality, merit and equality
initiated by the revolution. This precipitated a contradiction especially as
Napoleon overthrew rulers and replaced them with foreigners as he did in Spain,
Portugal and Holland. Even as he looted and demanded reparations from
conquered peoples, Napoleon created a paradoxical situation where he came to
be looked upon as the foreign tyrant despite his message of liberation. Even
formerly unpopular monarchical rulers were presented with a golden support to
win support of their subjects for a war against foreign rule. This was especially
true in Spain, Portugal, Russia and Prussia. In Prussia there even developed a
strong national spirit which manifested itself in the dislike of all things French
including language, dress and culture.

Establishing an empire left him without any claims to legitimacy having

destroyed the revolutionary values of republicanism which had given him
respectability. Even in France Napoleon weakened his own position when he
created an empire to replace the republic in his attempt to strengthen his position
and ensure a legacy for his descendants. Naturally this destroyed the republican
values of the Revolution that facilitated his rise and made it unlikely that he
would maintain the support of revolutionaries. Without moral foundations,
Napoleon could only maintain his rule as long as he commanded sufficient armed
force. Having turned his back on the Revolutionary principles that had brought
him to power, Napoleon found himself in a unique position where he was could
not count on the support of revolutionaries or that of the old monarchical order.
Not surprisingly there was little internal sup
ort for his continued rule when he was defeated by the European forces outside
Europe.
To conclude, it is therefore clear that Napoleon doomed himself after throwing
the gauntlet at European Rulers still strong enough and determined to crush the
principles of the French revolution that had brought him to power. At the same
time he had made his own position untenable by alienating the revolutionaries in
France and local populations in Europe who would have supported him against
the monarchical rulers.