200 Years Since the Death of Napoleon

This year marks 200 years since Napoleon died on Saint Helena in 1821. There seems to be a fair amount of excitement in France, with various events being planned. In particular, President Macron is scheduled to give a commemorative speech on May 5, the anniversary of his death, which is sparking controversy. In France, Napoleon is often utilized politically in this manner.

In my case, since my specialty is business administration, my interest in Napoleon is strictly about strategy. Military strategy is surprisingly useful for business strategy, and Napoleon stands out as a very prominent figure in that field. There is quite a lot to learn from Napoleon's skillful strategies.

Napoleon has many facets, but to me, he feels like a hero of the battlefield. His battles were magnificent, and I think his ultimate legitimacy came from winning those battles. It feels as though he was destined to keep winning. Looking at it from that perspective, interesting aspects begin to emerge.

That is certainly true.

His birth was not necessarily high-born, was it? If he had been part of a royal family, he would have had natural legitimacy, but since he lacked that, he had no choice but to keep winning wars and turn that into popularity. In a sense, he used the popularity of the people as the source of his own legitimacy.

I think that initially, he fought as a means to gain favor with politicians and others, but once he reached the top, it feels as though the means and the end were reversed. In other words, I get the impression that waging war became the objective, and he began searching for the means to do so. I feel this was the beginning of his downfall.

What you just said seems to fit perfectly with Constant's famous work, "The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation," written in 1813. As another contemporary critique of Napoleon, Chateaubriand wrote a scathing indictment titled "Of Bonaparte and the Bourbons" to defend the Bourbon dynasty.

From a literary standpoint, these two are representative of Napoleon critiques, but Constant's is far more persuasive. What Professor Kikusawa just mentioned is exactly on point—the idea of "usurpation." The reason he had to keep winning is that, for example, a king of the Bourbon dynasty has many ancestors before him, so even if he loses once or twice, the people will not abandon him. But Napoleon did not have that.

Indeed. In "The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation," Constant says, "Napoleon is an anachronism. He goes against civilization. Europe is becoming civilized, yet he is going backward, so he will not last."

Interestingly, after he abdicated as Emperor, no one thought of making his son the king or successor. Consequently, it became Louis XVIII. This is despite the fact that when Napoleon became Emperor, he had established a hereditary system through a plebiscite. In that sense, one could argue he lacked legitimacy.

I am a scholar of Constant, but if asked whether Constant was right, I think he was about 80% correct. However, I don't think we can say Napoleon was entirely an anachronism.

Napoleon himself tried very hard to establish legitimacy beyond military victory. The Napoleonic Code (1804) and his coronation (1804) are examples of this. The ceremony was held at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, he even invited the Pope, and the symbolism he wore was iconic. He made efforts to establish legitimacy outside of victory, but perhaps those efforts were not entirely successful.

Chateaubriand said after Napoleon's death, "Vivant, il a manqué le monde; mort, il le possède" ("Living, he failed to win the world; dead, he possesses it"). This means that the Napoleonic legend was created after his death, and through it, Napoleon was resurrected as a symbol and an ideology.

So, I think it depends on the definition of legitimacy, but in a sense, the idea of Bonapartism had a major influence on French politics thereafter. The Napoleonic Code also had a significant impact.

Chateaubriand defended the Bourbon dynasty to the end. The "légitimité" (legitimacy) he spoke of was, in short, historical legitimacy. The legitimacy Napoleon sought had no historical background at all; it was the support of the masses. He climbed to the seat of power that way, but once he reached the top, his biggest problem became how to maintain it. At that time, something like the coronation probably appealed greatly to the general public.

However, people like Stendhal, who had admired and been devoted to Bonaparte when he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy in his youth, began to think something was wrong around that time. To intellectuals with liberal ideas, a coronation like that was laughable. There must have been such complex public opinions.

The event that allowed Napoleon to distinguish himself was the Siege of Toulon (1793). After the Revolution, that area had many royalists, and the central government's control did not reach it. They sent troops to capture Toulon, but the generals couldn't do it well. Then the young Napoleon stepped in, forced his own capture plan on his superiors, and immediately succeeded, bringing him into the spotlight.

From the Battle of Toulon, Napoleon likely saw that the upper ranks were useless. He was constantly frustrated. Since he was still a subordinate, his own plans couldn't be executed immediately. However, the leadership was in disarray, and eventually, they executed the plan exactly as he proposed. From that, he probably thought the government behind them was incompetent.

That's true. What I think must have been difficult for Napoleon was that the radical Jacobins resurfaced many times even after Robespierre fell. Even after the Directory (1795–99) was established, every time there was an election in the legislature, either the royalists or the Jacobins would win, and the five "directeurs" (directors) holding executive power at the center were not a monolith.

As a result, it was unclear which way things would swing. When it looked like the royalists might win, Paul Barras and others used Napoleon's power to suppress them with gunfire in Paris (the 13 Vendémiaire). I think there was likely a moment during all this when Napoleon realized he could seize power himself.

Afterward, Napoleon went to Italy as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, but at the time, because there was a shortage of personnel, they made any young soldier who showed even a bit of talent a general. However, to monitor their political views, the power brokers in Paris dispatched their own loyal legislators to various regions.

If they reported to Paris that a general had lost, or was incompetent, or too lenient, that general would be immediately recalled, tried, and executed. Napoleon was placed in such an environment. Even the title of Commander-in-Chief was for a specific period—essentially a mission with a fixed date.

In terms of maintaining a regime, I think Tokugawa Ieyasu built his system very skillfully. He was a military man—a samurai—but he became a brilliant politician. In that regard, I feel Napoleon was always busy with war. After settling the wars, Ieyasu masterfully created institutions for internal governance. Napoleon couldn't reach that point.

Why? As is often said, because he was not the king of a single nation but became an emperor ruling multiple countries, his territory was not clearly defined. Therefore, he didn't have the time to build an institutional framework.

Napoleon was the first to establish something like a staff department—a general staff—within the military, but those staff members were strictly military personnel for war and were not brought into politics. If he could have applied that to domestic politics, things might have been a bit different.

For example, Napoleon tried various things to merge the traditional old nobility with his confidants—the new imperial nobility made up of young soldiers.

According to people like Madame de Staël, this wasn't a design to maintain the regime; she spoke very ill of him, saying that because Napoleon was a bad person, he mixed the respectable with the disreputable just to enjoy seeing others feel miserable and have their self-esteem wounded (laughs).

I think, for instance, he conscripted patriotic citizens and used them skillfully. Another major point is that he recognized private property by law. Why? Because if they were defeated and ruled by an enemy country, their land would be taken away, so the soldiers fought desperately. In this way, he skillfully managed the psychological aspects of human beings.

Until then, mercenaries and criminals were sent to the battlefield as soldiers. Such soldiers would run away immediately and scatter, so they had to be kept in a tight formation. This made them easy targets for artillery. On the other hand, even if a national army acted in squads, they would return to form a single army again, allowing for diverse tactics. I think Napoleon understood the character of the army very well.

Mercenaries were given money for good performance. However, Napoleon created a system of giving medals instead of money, deploying a type of management that had never existed before. In terms of military affairs, I think it was revolutionary.

"Ifs" are forbidden in history, but Talleyrand, who was Napoleon's right-hand man, advised him after winning the Battle of Friedland (1807), saying, "Let's stop here." He said, "I should like to think that this victory is the last one Your Majesty will be forced to win. That is why it is precious to me. For, however beautiful victory may be, I must speak frankly: if Your Majesty proceeds further on the path of war and exposes yourself to new dangers, in my view, victory will lose more than I can say" (Jean Orieux, translated by Yasushi Miyazawa, "Talleyrand").

In response, Napoleon said, "Don't be ridiculous," and continued his conquests, saying he had more ambition. Since we know that Napoleon eventually lost, we tend to think it was inevitable, but when and how legitimacy is established is also a matter of time.

To begin with, legitimacy in France had become precarious since the Revolution. It wasn't as if the return of the Bourbons would provide legitimacy; that wasn't the case at all.

Everyone knew they could no longer operate under the Divine Right of Kings. In other words, there was only popular sovereignty, but conflict arose over what popular sovereignty meant and who represented the people, making politics unstable. In that sense, while legitimacy was not solid, Napoleon presented one model.

Pierre Rosanvallon of the Collège de France says that the Napoleonic model is one where a single individual, a leader, embodies the people, which is why he disregards the legislature. Napoleon is often mocked as the "Louis XIV of a democratic state," but it became a model of popular sovereignty like "L'état, c'est moi" ("I am the state").

The basis for that was that Napoleon held several plebiscites and claimed he had this much support. Both as First Consul and as Emperor, when the constitution was put to a plebiscite, usually about half the people abstained, but among those who voted, he won overwhelmingly. He used various tricks, like adding half of the abstainers to his side, but he probably felt he had no choice.

That's right. To guarantee legitimacy, there was only the plebiscite, but once he acquired power, he used every trick in the book to solidify it—creating systems, manipulating consciousness through opinion and propaganda, and even mobilizing the arts.

After the French Revolution, French politics became unstable and increasingly divided. The Directory was constantly unstable, and seeing that this wouldn't work, one of the directors, Sieyès, teamed up with Napoleon to carry out the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799). Then, Napoleon, having seized power, declared along with the proclamation of the Constitution of the Year VIII that the Revolution was over. It didn't actually stabilize until around 1802, though.

Looking at it this way, politics, which had been unstable since the Revolution, became increasingly centralized under Napoleon's rule and stabilized after a few years. I think that is an objective fact.

I think he was clever in that regard. It wasn't just war; he was doing incredible manipulation of opinion and propaganda. The Nazis would later learn from that. I think Napoleonic fashion and Imperial fashion were also means of capturing people's hearts.

Publicly, Napoleon praised the ideals of the French Revolution, speaking of liberty and equality, but behind the scenes, he was already saying things like this during the Italian campaign: "A republic of thirty million people! With our customs and our vices! How is such a thing possible? It was a delusion with which the French were infatuated, but it will pass like all the others. What they need is glory, the gratification of their vanity. As for liberty, they don't care a bit about it" (Jean Baelen, "Benjamin Constant et Napoléon").

He said terrible things like, "They don't want liberty at all; just give them a baby's rattle to play with."

From the perspective of liberals like Madame de Staël, it seemed that Napoleon was using various means to strip people of their liberty and create a dictatorial power. Napoleon exiled Madame de Staël 40 leagues from Paris. It's hard for us today to understand what "not being allowed to enter Paris" meant back then, but for such an intellectual, life wasn't worth living without the salons of Paris.

Madame de Staël had no choice but to leave Paris, but she would sneak back while Napoleon was away at the battlefield. Fouché, the Minister of Police, would turn a blind eye, but then all of that would get back to Napoleon. Later, she would incur Napoleon's wrath again and be forced to flee to Coppet in Switzerland. There is a very interesting book called "Ten Years of Exile" that describes that process.

Napoleon was close to a military dictator, but I think he was clever in that he left almost no such impression. What he did was almost the same as the military dictatorships in places like modern-day Myanmar, but he has an image of very skillfully conducting plebiscites and creating laws.

He had a scientific mind and was good at mathematics. Of course, he was very good at military affairs, but not just that; he was bullied at the military academy and spent all his time in the library reading many history books, so I think he was quite knowledgeable about history. In that sense, he was also a man of the humanities, and you get the feeling he was no ordinary person.

When Napoleon was at the Brienne military school, he hardly socialized with his peers, reading books and thinking by himself, and his grades weren't great either. He was 42nd out of 58.

That looks bad at first glance, but he graduated in 11 months when it normally takes 4 years. So he was exceptionally capable.

That's amazing, isn't it?

He was a genius, after all. However, since he was originally from Corsica, which had been Italian territory, he wasn't very good at French and seems to have been bullied quite a bit for that.

Actually, it seems he wanted to join the Navy, but at the time, you couldn't join the French Navy unless you were a true aristocrat, so he became an artillery officer in the Army. It's interesting that his losses to the British were mostly naval battles.

Another interesting point is that when he lost, he didn't lose completely. For example, even though he lost the naval battle during the Egyptian campaign, he won the land battles, so he didn't return to France feeling defeated; instead, he was treated as a returning hero. Also, while he lost the Battle of Trafalgar, he won a great victory at the Battle of the Three Emperors at Austerlitz around the same time, which canceled it out.

But in the end, other countries began to imitate his tactics. This was true for Hannibal as well; just like in business administration, successful people are imitated, so eventually, they can no longer create a competitive advantage.

Aside from political matters, Napoleon has the Napoleonic Code as an administrative legacy. If he came up with this concept himself, he was a remarkable person.

It is said that he was quite committed to that ideology. If you ask where the idea of creating the Napoleonic Code came from, I think one source is Rousseau and the ideological current of republicanism at the time. Of course, Napoleon read Rousseau, and from there came the idea of the existence of a Legislator, and that creating a nation means creating laws and a constitution.

Napoleon actually became Emperor through a constitution. He backed that up with a plebiscite. This is a French tradition, and while the term "Rousseau-Jacobin model of the state" is sometimes used, popular sovereignty is understood as something unitary, where the Legislator and the Sovereign are emphasized. This is very French and quite different from the Anglo-Saxon model.

In Britain, the separation of powers is taken for granted. However, in Napoleon's case, the logic was that since he embodied the people, it would be impossible to resist him. There is a famous saying by Sieyès: "Authority from above, confidence from below." Since he embodies the people, no logic to restrict him can emerge from anywhere. This is the logic of Rousseauism; under the logic of the General Will, the right to resistance is not recognized.

Constant became a member of the Tribunat after Napoleon's coup, but was exiled by Napoleon in 1802. At that time, Napoleon said, "What are these metaphysicians thinking? They don't understand at all. In France, I am the people, and there is no room for an opposition."

In contrast, in Britain, it is possible for the King to become the enemy of the people and for Parliament to represent the people. Therefore, the royal power is restricted.

I see. People who speak ill of Napoleon say he simply wanted to make himself appear omnipotent. For example, while Napoleon was fighting on the battlefield, he received a letter from a delegation of a small French town. They were asking for Napoleon's authorization to repair a stone that had crumbled in the town church.

I was surprised that he was doing such things, but did he have to do them, which is why his sleep time was so short? I mean, if the people are himself, then he has to do everything the people think about (laughs).

He must have been a control freak.

Napoleon's legitimacy is also related to his birth, isn't it? Originally, when he was in Corsica, it was under Italian rule, and then it became French territory. So in a sense, he wasn't a "true" Frenchman. He was very vulnerable when pressed on that point.

Chateaubriand, for example, said the same thing as an insult. He called him Buonaparte (the Corsican spelling) instead of Bonaparte. He said the reason he could shed so much French blood on the battlefield was that he wasn't French. In other words, a king would cherish his subjects, but he didn't think that way. Madame de Staël also said at every opportunity that he was a different race and a different personality from ordinary French people.

However, the catalyst that led to the resistance against Napoleon and his defeat was, for example, the war in Spain. The Spaniards were, according to Napoleon's words, a hopeless lot, but they were able to resist him.

Or Russia. In "Ten Years of Exile," Madame de Staël saw various places while fleeing and said the Russians were completely different. They were people from before civilization, and such people had the potential to crush Napoleon.

Conversely, Stendhal, who was devoted to Napoleon, hated France and truly adored Napoleon up until he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy. The young Stendhal entered Milan during the Second Italian Campaign, and in his later years, when he came to write about it in his autobiography, the memories took over his mind, and he was so excited and his heart pounded so much that he couldn't write and had to walk around the room for a while.

I think Stendhal used Julien Sorel to create a character that directly inherited the image of the young people of the Napoleonic era who looked up to Napoleon.

Constant wrote the novel "Adolphe," but was his identity as a politician stronger?

Yes. He didn't seem to have much of an identity as a literary figure.

In Constant's case, the difficult part is that although he had been critical of Napoleon all along, he ended up cooperating during the Hundred Days. Because of that, he was mocked as "Constant l'inconstant" (Inconstant Constant) for his perceived flip-flopping.

But in his book "Memoirs of the Hundred Days," he explained that he cooperated because he thought the liberal state he envisioned might be possible under Napoleon, and he drafted a constitution. It was called the "Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire." It was a liberal constitution that emphasized the legislature and respected freedom of speech and the press, but since it ended with the Hundred Days, it was never realized. So, Constant didn't feel he had flip-flopped.

However, there is also an ethos in the traditional French national character that respects absolute power, which Tocqueville later addressed in his memoirs ("The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville"). He argued that constitutionalism is difficult to establish in France and that individual liberty is rarely respected.

He said, "There is only one thing that cannot be created in France: a free government. And there is only one institution that cannot be destroyed: centralization. How could it be abolished? The enemies of the government love it, and the rulers adore it."

Montesquieu said similar things. So, while many thinkers and historians emphasize the rupture caused by the Revolution, Tocqueville instead focused on continuity, saying that everything from Louis XIV to Jacobin rule and Napoleon's governance is connected. He argued that it was becoming increasingly centralized, and I think that's correct.

However, in the case of France, when the power of the nobility was strong, there was also the idea that resisting the King was precisely how one showed care for the King.

Exactly. Montesquieu criticized the absolutism of Louis XIV. He argued that the nobility was important, and that liberty is realized by having intermediate bodies constrain royal power. In reality, however, centralization progressed steadily after Louis XIV, and was eventually completed by Napoleon following the French Revolution.

The concept of French grandeur (greatness) is often emphasized. De Gaulle also said, "France cannot be France without greatness," but it is often said that there is a lineage from Louis XIV to Napoleon to De Gaulle. Louis XIV is seen as the origin of French greatness as a core identity. Of course, one could also point to Charlemagne (Charles the Great), but emphasis is placed on things that evoke such grand dominion.

Madame de Staël and pro-British thinkers appealed from a constitutionalist standpoint that the concentration of power and the absolute nature of sovereignty were dangerous, but these ideas did not really take root in France.

Tocqueville was also very critical of the fact that intermediate organizations—which should exist between the power and the people—had been eroded and eliminated by royal power, leaving only absolute power and the people.

However, people like Guizot were the opposite; they promoted centralization, thinking to gather all the local power of the country in Paris and issue all commands from there, which led to clashes with Tocqueville.

They certainly clashed.

At the time, Guizot was overwhelmingly the one in power, while Tocqueville was just a lowly legislator. However, their reputations have now reversed. The disappearance of intermediate forces remains a major issue continuing to this day.

Pierre Rosanvallon says that point is crucial. Using modern terminology, he argues that without intermediate bodies like civil society, it is impossible to limit power, and it also becomes difficult to express the will of the people from the bottom up.

However, France maintained a tradition where the general will is absolute and legislative power is unlimited. It is said that this finally changed in the 1970s. Until then, because the parliament and legislature represented the people and expressed the general will, it was believed no other power could constrain them. For a long time, there was no system for judicial review of unconstitutional legislation, until the Constitutional Council finally took on that function in the 70s.

It is sometimes described as "Montesquieu's counterattack," meaning that what had long been run on Rousseauism had, in a sense, moved closer to constitutionalism. Some even say dramatically that the Revolution finally ended then.

However, around 2005, when there were riots and incidents and the EU Constitution was rejected, some legislators suggested abandoning the Fifth Republic, and draft constitutions for a Sixth Republic appeared. When things don't go well like this, there is still a revolutionary rather than gradual tradition of trying to overturn the constitution and start fresh.

Even in Napoleon's time, because the Constitution of 1795 was deemed no good, a completely different Constitution of 1799 (Constitution of the Year VIII) was created.

I believe the constitution has changed 15 times from the French Revolution to the present.

Napoleon's way of fighting was extremely meticulous; it was a multi-dimensional and three-dimensional strategy involving the psychological, technical, and physical, and I find it truly magnificent.

Thinkers like Clausewitz focused on physical monism and relied solely on military force. Napoleon, however, did not just use force; he appealed to the psychology of his soldiers and was also skilled in tactics, brilliantly deploying a strategy that manipulated the physical, psychological, and technical dimensions. I feel this is something we must still learn from today.

For example, from a physical perspective, he always maintained the latest weaponry. He was also very concerned about his soldiers' wine, bread, and especially their shoes. If leather shoes were not available, it would affect the speed of the soldiers' march, so he ensured they were properly provided. Psychologically, he was very good at boosting morale by appealing to patriotism and promising to protect private property. In his youth, he led by example, going to the front lines to move the hearts of his soldiers.

In addition, tactically, he created the division system that continues today. This idea came from him, and it is equivalent to the divisional system in modern corporations. In a large army system, moving results in a long line. By splitting it into division units and marching in parallel, the speed is completely different. Napoleon brought about many such military revolutions.

After Napoleon became commander-in-chief of the first Italian campaign and occupied Milan, even when officers were invited to various salons as the occupying force, they had no shoes to wear. I wondered if the lessons learned from such terrible experiences were put to use later.

I don't know if it was specifically that experience, but I think he was aware of such things. Napoleon's army had a staff department, and he created positions for people to manage things like shoes. So he was surprisingly attentive to small details, and that might have made him popular with the soldiers.

He seems to have gone to talk with the soldiers quite casually, and they reportedly called him "the little corporal" (le petit caporal).

He was given such a nickname and was liked by everyone. However, when he became Consul, an old comrade who knew him from the past saw him at the palace in Paris and thought, "Oh, there's that guy who made it big. I'll go introduce him." But when he got close, the atmosphere was not at all one where he could use the familiar "tu" (tutoyer), and he came back without saying anything. He must have started harboring great ambitions around that time.

After he died in 1821, his legend was born precisely through Las Cases's memoirs ("Memorial de Sainte-Hélène").

It is the so-called Napoleon myth, but whenever France faces hardship, it tries to repair its wounded pride by holding onto past glories, including Louis XIV, as nostalgia. That trend has always existed, and every time "greatness" is mentioned as a French identity, Louis XIV, Napoleon, and De Gaulle appear.

Former Prime Minister de Villepin is one example, but many people refer to Napoleon and employ Napoleonic imagery when emphasizing the greatness of France.

The Napoleon myth was born through Las Cases's memoirs, and the project to bring Napoleon's remains back to France actually realized during the July Monarchy. The monarchy tried to use Napoleon politically. That trend continues to this day.

Regarding the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's death this year, some say we shouldn't do such things, while others say it's fine but must be a "commémoration" (commemoration) rather than a "célébration" (celebration)—that it is necessary for everyone to remember and understand past history.

At first, some people took it seriously as a war of liberation, but that changed later. Beethoven also had expectations at first but was later disappointed. Furthermore, a problematic point is that Napoleon reinstated slavery, which had been abolished in 1794. Some reacted fiercely, asking how he could do such a thing while upholding the ideals of the French Revolution.

I think he is always controversial. On top of that, there is talk that Macron will give a commemorative public speaking. I suspect his main objective is probably to take votes away from Le Pen.

Everyone uses him for political purposes. Even his nephew, Napoleon III, was mocked by everyone, but the name Napoleon was so effective that he went from president to emperor.

It is somewhat mysterious why Napoleon is so popular in Japan. This is certainly not the case in Britain, nor in America, with a few exceptions. But in Japan, even Yoshida Shoin was already obsessed with Napoleon long ago. A translation of Las Cases's memoirs was published as early as 1912, translated by Chota Maeda, a professor at Keio.

I don't hear it much from modern business people, but there seem to have been many people in the former Japanese military who liked Napoleon. I think Kanji Ishiwara and others liked him too. I suppose they admire him because he is so brilliant as a soldier.

When it comes to historical military heroes, the list usually goes Caesar, Hannibal, and then Napoleon. I feel he is definitely one of those who can be counted as a superstar.

No one else had such far-reaching ambition and the will to realize it. I believe Stendhal said something to that effect. Constant probably thought that compared to the ancients, modern people are driven by the peace and pleasure of private life, so saying things like they did in the ancient past is a complete anachronism today.

In a sense, I think that view is healthier. Heroes like Napoleon are not born without war. Constant said that the modern era is a commercial society and is heading toward peace because it is civilized. Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and Kant said similar things.

However, those predictions were wrong, and Hitler appeared in the 20th century. So I think it's better not to imitate him too much.

In terms of the ideals of the EU, there are ambivalent aspects. Napoleon did embody ideals like liberty and equality, at least as propaganda. However, the European community is a framework created specifically to ensure such wars never happen again.

In any case, there is no doubt that Napoleon will continue to be a figure who invites controversy.