Here in the capital of a former jewel in the French imperial crown (Quebec City), I just finished a rather dry academic biography of Napoleon by Steven Englund. It is easy for to forget that France was once an important military power, just like us. Rather than exploiting and/or pillaging, Napoleon tried to liberate the people in the territories that he conquered, just like George W. Bush. And just like George W. Bush, Napoleon suffered his first defeat in a multi-ethnic Middle Eastern country:
“The Turkish Empire, which nominally ruled [Egypt], was regarded as an immoral and declining power, so the French saw an opportunity to revive civilization …
“The effective goverment of Egypt at this time was in the hands of the Mamelukes, an equestrian feudal order of slave origin that had long held power over a disparate population of Moslem Arabs, Coptic Christians, and Sephardic Jews. …
“To the [French] expedition’s stunned disillusionment, the land of the pharoahs turned out to be a filthy backwater of flies, mud huts, disease, howling dogs, and superstition. Alexandria offered nothing worthy of its grand name. …
“The most controversial [decision by Bonaparte] in this campaign was his decision to execute three thousand Turkish prisoners … [who] had surrendered on a promise of quarter …
“[The French] intention to bring ‘enlightenment’ and ‘development’ to blend ‘the rights of man’ with ‘the law of the Koran.’ From Egypt’s perspective, the Europeans dropped suddenly onto their scene as an alien, hostile force majeure. …
“What eluded Napoleon’s anticipation was the degree and persistence of Moslem mistrust of the French, coupled with their comparative indifference to Western notions of reform. … The preponderance of Egypt’s populace sincerely believed that anything worth knowing was already explicit or clearly implicit in the Koran. More seriously, many Napoleonic measures outraged people. … Decrees on behalf of women, Jews, and Coptic Christians … went down almost as badly as the imposition of high taxes to support the French army. …
“The French hold on Egypt thus remained what it started out as: force operating behind a facade of hypocrisy…
“For the mass of the populace, the French could not get out from under the burden of being seen as ‘the Christian enemy,’ the crusaders returned. In that perspective, the Ottomans and even the Mamelukes were preferable because at least they were not infidels.”
The good news for W. is that Napoleon bounced back from that 1799 defeat and several others, managing to return to power even after exile to Elba, for example. So if his obsession with Iraq results in the loss of the White House he might still manage to come back in 2008.
[Nouvelle France and Quebec prefigure to some extent conflicts and controversies today. The French came to live in a reasonable amount of harmony with the Indians, whom they saw as valuable economic allies in such endeavors as the fur trade. The early French immigrants learned Indian languages and many married Algonquin women. They expected some sort of ethnic and cultural fusion to be the end result. The English, by contrast, came to displace the Indians. They also did not shy from the ethnic cleansing of Nova Scotia, deporting 10,000 French-speaking Acadians between 1755 and 1762.]
Montreal is the economic engine of Quebec – I’m not sure that you can say that unemployment outside that city is really any worse than unemployment in other provinces outside the big cities. And did I miss the “small government” phase in Quebec?
As an aside, we Nova Scotians are buried in Acadiens this summer, since we are hosting the 3rd Congres Mondial Acadien
http://cma2004.com/En/home.cfm
Philip, I think your comparison is very, very interesting. I, for one, believe that out only hope is for a soft landing when the bubble of American supremecy pops. There really isn’t much future in being The Last Empire in my book.
Actually I just remembered some advice: “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”. That advice would have helped both GWB and Bonaparte.
Hey, as long as he doesn’t get involved with a Sicilian when death is on the line, he’ll probably be okay. 🙂
What does that have to do with anything?
Nick,
I think Timothy is referring to the fact that the quote “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” is from The Princess Bride, along with the quote about Sicilians.
Considering that both Afghanistan and Iraq are completely “owned” by the US military, isn’t it a little premature to call it a defeat?
Less US military have died in Iraq than civilians in LA (due to murder). Which is the “hot zone” I ask you?
“Liberating Iraq” was an ex post facto rationale for the invasion, so the comparison to Napoleon seems a bit silly.
PatrickG’s stats are also remarkably silly. I don’t know how many cops were killed in the line of duty in LA last year, but I doubt it approaches 900.
When comparing Bonaparte’s Egyption expedition to Bush’s invasion of Iraq, it’s important to understand several important differences.
1. this happened before Napoleon became Consul, he was merely a General, so he was ordered there by the Directory, to get him out of France, where he was too popular.
2. Bonaparte actually fought on the front lines. He didn’t hide in a foreign palace while his men perished in the desert heat.
3. When Bonaparte went to Egypt he took western scientists into the country for the first time. They discovered the Rosetta Stone. When Bush sent troops into Iraq the antiquities of Mesopotamia were looted.
yes, and Napoleon left his army in the wild, he did that Twice. I never understood how he got away with this, and still he remained popular.
yes, and Napoleon left his army in the wild, he did that Twice. I never understood how he got away with this, and still he remained popular.
yes, and Napoleon left his army in the wild, he did that Twice. I never understood how he got away with this, and still he remained popular.
Super site!