Truth Really Matters

Ananindeua For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?  Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. – Jesus, Mark 8:36-38

What would it look like for an ordinary man, a reasonably intelligent man, ambitious, determined to ‘have it all,’ to succeed beyond his wildest dreams?  What if he has no real core, and no fear of or belief in God, but is simply driven by the morals (and immorals) of the culture, the passions of his times.  In his ultimate and spectacular success, will he be happy, content, satisfied?  Will he be wise enough to recognize his limits, or even the limits imposed by reality?

Well, it ‘looks like’ the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.  He achieved it all, he had it all, and none of it was enough.  He gained the whole world and lost his soul.  The woeful tragedy of his life will only be fully realized when he is on his knees at the Great White Throne Judgment, when the Lord Jesus delivers the final verdict on a wasted, self-willed life.

I recently read Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon:  A Life, a serious biography of the French emperor.  Let’s pull some nuggets.  Napoleon (1769-1821) fought sixty battles, losing but seven.  (He never understood naval warfare, however, and so Great Britain was the bane of his life.)  His greatest achievements were the institutions he established that ended the chaos of the French Revolution, expecially the principle of equality under the law.  The Napoleonic Code today undergirds the legal systems, at least in part, for forty different countries across the world.  He ended rural banditry, massively supported science and the arts, ended the hyper-inflation of Revolutionary days, and killed corruption nationally and locally . . . except for his own cronyism.  Along with the schools and traditions he established, it is likely that Napoleon would be a historical giant even without his military prowess.

Napoleon had an extraordinary memory and was extremely well read in classical, philosophical, and scientific literature.  He was a connoisseur of the theater, music, and the other arts; he socialized with astronomers, and was admired by the European intellectuals of the age, including Goethe, Byron, Beethoven, and Hegel.  Goethe described his time discussing literature and poetry with Napoleon as “one of the most gratifying experiences of his life.”

As Napoleon conquered much of Europe, he abolished the Inquisition, feudal oppressions, and anti-Semitism, bringing a measure of enlightenment through his administrators.  He sought active collaboration in these policy changes, not mere submission.

Napoleon never lacked confidence.  Looking back on his early victories as a general, he reminisced, “I no longer regarded myself as a simple general, but as a man called upon to decide the fate of peoples.  It came to me then that I really could become a decisive actor on our national stage.  At that point was born the first spark of high ambition.”  That ambition was coupled with a driven energy and motivation, a gift for oratory, a nearly perfect memory, and personal bravery under fire that magnified his leadership skills.

Napoleon once wrote to his brother, Joseph, “In order to lead an army you have ceaselessly to attend to it, be ahead of the news, provide for everything.”

To Talleyrand, his foreign minister, he observed, “There is but one step from triumph to downfall.  I have seen, in the most significant of circumstances, that some little thing always decides great events.”

Early in the Italian campaigns his military philosophy and habits became evident.  Essential was a strong esprit de corps, a combination of organizational spirit and pride.  He told Joseph, “Remember, it takes ten campaigns to create esprit de corps, which can be destroyed in an instant.”  He studied history to develop methods to build it in his army.  He employed plays, songs, operatic arias, proclamations, festivals, ceremonies, standards, and medals – he knew what soldiers wanted and he gave it to them; above all, victory.  He was approachable, and his men loved him for it.  He convinced his men they were on an adventure and that an ordinary man could make history.

Given his strengths, in what sense do I claim ordinariness for Napoleon?  He lacked a moral core.  His wife, Josephine, was unfaithful to him, and he reciprocated with multiple adulterous affairs.  Eventually, he discarded his wife in order to make a political marriage with an Austrian princess.  Historians have counted at least 22 mistresses, upon whom he bestowed considerable sums of public money.

He may or may not have believed in God, but doubted whether Jesus even existed.  He suggested that if Jesus actually performed miracles, he should have done so in Rome, not a backwater Israel.

The Revolution had broken the power of the Roman Catholic Church in France, which Napoleon equated with Christianity.  He was determined during his reign to be master of the Church in France, lest he be under its influence.  His treaties with the Papacy were strictly political.

On one occasion he said, “Were I obliged to have a religion, I would worship the sun – the source of all life – the real god of the earth.”  Also, “I like the Muslim religion best; it has fewer incredible things in it than ours.”  He criticized Christianity in that it “does not excite courage,” because “it takes too much care to go to heaven.”  But he was always politically practical in dealing with religious societies:  “If I ruled a people of Jews, I would rebuild the Temple of Solomon!”

Was he gifted in leadership?  Yes, certainly.  Management?  Nope.  He relentlessly micromanaged, obsessed with details.  In one year (1809) he wrote 3,250 letters, including one pointing out a discrepancy in a ministerial budget of 1 franc and 45 centimes.  Yet, he was charming with a smile that captivated.  An Irish MP who met him:  “He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man.”

Although raised in Corsica, Napoleon was sent to a military academy in France to be schooled and trained by monks.  He excelled in mathematics, recalling, “To be a good general you must know mathematics; it serves to direct your thinking in a thousand circumstances.”  I have experienced some truth in this.  Math is grounded in logic.  Habits in logical thinking serve one well in other disciplines.

The young Napoleon loved and read history voraciously, exhausting the library of biographies and history tomes, “devouring Plutarch’s tales of heroism, patriotism, and republican virtue.”  He also read Caesar, Cicero, Erasmus, and many others.  He acquired the nickname the Spartan, perhaps for his professed love of that city-state.  His favorite heroes were Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.  He spent afternoons reading while others played sports outside.

He idolized Rousseau, believing that the state should have power over the life and death of its citizens, and should have the right to censor the theater and the opera.  Accordingly, he would have no arguments with the excesses of the Revolution to come, except perhaps who should be in charge.

Napoleon’s upbringing infused a respect for social hierarchy, a belief in reward for merit and courage, and distaste for politicians, lawyers, journalists, and Britain.

He wrote prolifically, including sixty essays, novellas, histories, pamphlets, etc., before the age of twenty-six.  In his youth he was a Corsican nationalist, supporting resistance against French rule, but morphed into a French artillery officer who wanted to crush the Corsican revolt under Jacobin (Revolutionary) France.  The Revolution afforded opportunities for a young, poor officer without connections.  His criticism of the aristocracy endeared him to Revolutionary leaders, making him a ‘politically trustworthy’ soldier.

He recalls that at age 21 he got by with little money, “by never entering a café or going into society; by eating dry bread, and brushing my own clothes so that they might last the longer.  I lived like a bear, in a little room, with books for my only friends.”

As an artillery commander in early battles to secure the Revolution, Napoleon showed his flair and obsession for logistics.  Writing to HQ:  “One can remain for twenty-four or if necessary thirty-six hours without eating, but one cannot remain three minutes without gunpowder.”  His attention to detail informed successful leadership throughout his career, succeeding in one early campaign by “hectoring, bluster, requisitioning, and political string-pulling to put together a strong artillery train in very short order.”  This included commandeering a foundry for shot and mortars, and a workshop for musket repair.  He impressed his commander:  “I always found him at his post; when he needed rest he lay on the ground wrapped in his cloak:  he never left the batteries.”

By age 24 Napoleon was appointed a brigadier-general.  Turnover was spectacularly high in the early 1790s in Revolutionary France.

Napoleon was ruthless in quashing a Parisian mob at one point.  He used grapeshot, which is a cannon’s version of a shotgun, using musket balls for pellets.  Three hundred rioters were killed, but only six of Napoleon’s men.  Parisian mobs played no part in French politics for the next three decades.  He was credited with helping to prevent civil war and then promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and not long afterward to Commander of the Army of Italy, when the Jacobin leaders sought to extend their rule into Italy.

He did his usual homework, reading every available book, map, and atlas on Italy and the biographies of commanders who had fought there.  He was only twenty-six.  When someone commented on his youth, in regard to commanding an entire army, he replied, “I shall be old when I return.”

He found his new army in a wretched state, “dejected and enfeebled by sickness,” poorly led, and lacking horses, cannon, and “almost every other sinew of war.”  He cleaned house, firing officers, and grabbing resources everywhere he could.  He browbeat his HQ in Paris for 5,000 pairs of shoes for the troops.  Roberts:  “An astonishing number of his letters throughout his career refer to providing footwear for his troops.”

Napoleon’s military victories often enjoyed common elements:  an elderly opposing commander; a nationally and linguistically diverse enemy opposing his homogeneous French army; a vulnerable spot to exploit; and moving faster and concentrating forces at that spot to gain a numerical advantage, at least locally.

Napoleon:  “Youth is almost indispensable in commanding an army; so necessary are high spirits, daring, and pride to such a great task.”

In conquering northern Italy, Napoleon set some examples, once executing a hundred rebellious villagers and burning the town, professing that “bloodletting is among the ingredients of political medicine,” and might easily avoid the need for large-scale repressions.  He was brutal, but calculated in the use of brutality.

Napoleon:  “If you make war, wage it with energy and severity; it is the only means of making it shorter and consequently less deplorable for mankind.”

Of course, if he had been a Christian, there would have been no cause for war at all.  Why subjugate your neighbor’s country?  Why not let them live their own lives?  Why not pour your energy into the prosperity of your own people?  Similarly, Hitler helped Germany rise out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, and could have become a notable historical figure if he had simply focused on German prosperity.  But Hitler’s demons had other ideas.  I wonder whether some of the same demons practiced on Napoleon 130-odd years earlier.

Napoleon pulled off a masterly bluff against the Austrian army during the Italian campaign.  He was with a unit of 1,200 French soldiers when they encountered 3,000 lost Austrians.  In a parley, Napoleon calmly mentioned that he had his entire army with him and if the Austrians did not surrender within eight minutes, he would not spare one of them.  They surrendered, and once disarmed only then found out they outnumbered their captors.

In 1798 the Directory (the French ruling council) sent him with an army to Egypt to get him out of the way.  If he conquered Egypt, great.  If he died or lost in disgrace, that’s good, too.  Napoleon embraced the challenge, an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Alexander and Julius Caesar.  He included a wide array of talent in the expedition to explore historical and scientific inquiries.  Roberts’ account of the campaign is worth the price of the book, but I won’t provide details here.  Eventually, he left his army in charge in Egypt and returned to a troubled France at the command of the Directory.  France was in trouble; mismanagement and the harassment of Britain produced hyperinflation, and with it civil unrest.

Napoleon’s return to France results in a coup, leaving him as the first consul of a ruling triumvirate.  His path from that to emperor was straightforward.  He later commented, “The masses should be directed without their being aware of it.”  Modern politics is certainly in sync with this sentiment.  It is ironic that despite Napoleon’s advocacy for the Revolution, he eagerly accepted an emperor’s crown in 1804, just eleven years after the execution of Louis XVI.

Napoleon’s policies enabled him to attract the most talented public officials, explaining, “The art of appointing men is not nearly so difficult as the art of allowing those appointed to attain their full worth.”  His administration ended the inflation and balanced the budget for the first time in twenty years.

In 1800 he authorized a nationwide plebiscite to legitimize his rule and the new Constitution.  A favorable landslide was inevitable; nevertheless, as he often did, Napoleon yielded to the temptation to pad the figures, making the result appear overwhelming.  He similarly distorted reports of battle casualties and war booty in his favor throughout his life.  Artists depicting him regularly exaggerated him favorably, although this was fairly common in that age.  But Napoleon brought law and order to the countryside and rooted out corruption in the police forces and other institutions – all this made him immensely popular.  It’s a shame that America’s Democrat Party today does not take a lesson from this, apparently believing that the road to lasting power necessitates deep corruption and a breakdown in law and order.  Sigh.

Amazingly, Napoleon reversed the ‘brain drain’ from royalist emigres leaving France during the Revolution.  He gave them voting rights and citizenship, although warning them they could not hope to regain their property.  Many were appointed roles in the administration.

Napoleon was ruthless with the press, though, closing sixty of France’s seventy-three newspapers, making it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate public criticism.  “To leave the press to its own devices is to sleep beside a powder keg.”  But neither did freedom of the press exist in Prussia, Russia, or Austria at the time, and Britain restricted press freedom later on in 1819 with the notorious Six Acts, while Britain was at peace.  In 1800 France, the nation was in a seemingly perpetual state of war with five other countries.

Some think Napoleon’s most notable achievement was his legal reform, in which he invested substantial personal time and energy.  His commission replaced France’s forty-two legal codes into a single system which embraced not just law and justice, but also uniform weights and measures (Laplace’s metric system), a fully functioning market, and a centralized educational system, enabling talented children from all backgrounds to aspire to careers based on merit rather than birth.  During the process his constant refrain was, “Is this fair?  Is this useful?”  The system became known as Code Napoleon, or the Napoleonic Code.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 came about because of France’s war with Britain.  Napoleon needed the money and wanted to avoid conflict with the United States.  He prophesied, “I have just given to England a maritime rival that sooner or later  will humble her pride.”  America’s War of 1812 with Britain drew off British forces that still harried Napoleon.

Napoleon established the modern structure of armies by perfecting the Corps system.  He divided his army into units of 20,000 to 30,000, training them intensely.  Each corps was a mini-army, comprising infantry, cavalry, artillery, staff, intelligence, engineering, transport, mess, pay, and medical sections.  Corps worked with each other, typically less than one day’s march apart, allowing the army maneuverability to sweep around a flank and enclose an enemy.

Napoleon was a brilliant logistician.  Against the Austrians he amassed an army that matched the manpower of the Normandy invasion, with 130,800 infantry, 23,300 cavalry, and 544 guns with 10,000 artillerymen, a polyglot force featuring Italians, Poles, Arabs, Portuguese, Spanish, and Germans, and crossed a major river in a single night without losing a man.  The battle they fought was the largest ever in European history up to that point.

First used by Napoleon in 1805, by 1812 the corps was emulated by every European army, and continued to be the base structure of armies through 1945.  Napoleon invented modern land warfare.  Napoleon maneuvered and attacked relentlessly on his major campaigns, for example against the Prussians, never allowing them a chance to stop or regroup.  Patton emulated his philosophy during WW2, seeing that the quickest way to victory is a relentless destruction of the enemy’s military.

Despite Napoleon’s convictions on merit-based appointments and rewards, he engaged in nepotism, giving his brothers and stepson unwarranted responsibilities, even thrones atop the nations he conquered.  Too late, he admitted, “My brothers have done me a great deal of harm.”  They were neither competent nor as loyal as he had hoped.

Napoleon hated wasting time, typically working several tasks simultaneously.  During his bath and breakfast he would read several newspapers.  His secretaries hated translating the British papers for him, because their criticism enraged him.  On carriage rides, Josephine would read novels to him.  Yet he engendered loyalty and admiration from servants and staff throughout his reign, treating his subordinates well, rewarding them generously.

Napoleon’s downfall, of course, was his war against Russia, going against the advice of many counsellors.  He never intended to go deep into Russia, but Czar Alexander sucked him in, withdrawing and retreating to avoid a decisive battle until the terrain, the winter, and Russia’s army bled the French dry.  The Russians were willing to burn Moscow to the ground (which they did), to deny a winter haven for the French, a strategic act which proved decisive.

Napoleon’s army to support the invasion of Russia began with a million men, an awesome quantity, of which perhaps 615,000 actually marched eastward into Russia, after leaving garrisons throughout the empire.  Less than 25,000 returned, of which perhaps only 10,000 could still fight.  Russian losses were also staggering, but the war broke Napoleon’s hold on power.  Roberts covers the campaign in great detail.  It’s a notable and cautionary history.  (Hitler should have studied it carefully – but it is good that he didn’t.)

The European powers would not let him regroup.  Eventually, he was forced to give up the throne in 1814, to be exiled to the small island of Elba off the Italian coast.  For ten months he reorganized and revitalized the island’s defenses, customs, and infrastructure, always busy, busy, busy.  He sought to make Elba the best run ‘little kingdom’ in Europe!  In 1815, he returned to France, raising an army and ultimately losing his final battle at Waterloo.  Roberts details the strategic errors Napoleon made, often going against his own maxims, his own experiences.  I see the battle of Waterloo, despite its fame, as overrated.  Even if Napoleon had won that battle, the massive Austrian and Russian armies were on their way and would have crushed the remnants of the French army.

After all, most of the major battles of that era were battles of attrition.  Even significant victories cost the winners dearly.  France simply could not afford a major war of attrition at that point in history.

From there Napoleon is banished to an isolated exile on St. Helena, a lonely island in the South Atlantic, on the long trade route from Britain to India.

It is thought by many that if Napoleon had retained the French throne, he might well have focused on a peaceful administration, since the French people desperately wanted a lasting peace.  But his European adversaries did not trust his imperial ambitions.  On all sides, there were about 100,000 casualties from his attempt to regain the throne.

It is amazing they did not simply execute him.  If the Bourbons (French royalists) or the Prussians had captured him, they certainly would have executed him.  Accordingly, he found a way to surrender to the British navy.  The Brits did not want him anywhere near Europe, and so they settled on St. Helena.

Napoleon spent his last five and a half years on the island, writing memoirs to justify his exploits, despite remarking once that he did not care what the future thought of him.  He would dictate to his secretaries up to twelve hours per day.

His memoirs were published in four volumes two years after his death, becoming the greatest international best-seller of the 19^th century.

“What a novel my life has been!” he said, somewhat truthfully, because he often exaggerated his accomplishments and downplayed his defeats.  Napoleon had no lack of self-esteem.  He suffered an extended sickness at the end, but said, “I don’t have chimerical fears of Hell,” and “Death is nothing but a sleep without dreams.”  Also, “As to my body, it will become carrots or turnips.  I have no dread of death.  In the army I have seen many men perish who were talking to me.”

Hedging his bets, though, he took Roman Catholic last rites from a local priest.  He died at age 51 on May 5, 1821, “just after the firing of the island’s sunset gun.”  Roberts closes his account of Napoleon’s life . . . “The ambition he had conceived as a schoolboy at Brienne, and from which he never wavered, had been achieved.  He had transformed the art of leadership, built an empire, handed down laws for the ages, and joined the ancients.”

Indeed, but he joined them in Hell.  I’m reminded of Isaiah 5:14-15 . . . “Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure:  and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.  And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.”

What a waste.  His empire was shattered, over a million lives lost in useless wars, and many other millions were displaced, impoverished, and suffered in countless ways.  This ambition to control others is Satanic at its core, no matter how it is rationalized.  No doubt but that Napoleon suffered demonic influence, if not possession, throughout his adult life.  And the reward for all his ‘glory’?  Hell.

France warred against Austria for 108 months, Prussia for 58 months and Russia for 55 months.  But France’s wars with Britain encompassed 242 months between 1793 and 1815.  The Royal Navy blockaded France for two decades.  Enormous treasure was expended throughout Europe because of Napoleon’s ambitions, treasure derived from nobles and peasants and cobblers . . . war is a blight on all of humanity, not merely in bloodshed and truncated lives, but in bodies maimed and soldiers and sailors separated from their families for years.  Wellington fought the French for six years in Iberia from 1808 to 1814, without taking a day’s leave.  Countless others paid the same price.

Yes, it is remarkable that Napoleon was ‘merely’ exiled and allowed to write his memoirs.

Napoleon’s life is a challenge to our own ambitions.  Are we laying treasure up above, in God’s hand, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves cannot break through nor steal?  Could any man on this Earth today achieve temporal glory to match Napoleon’s?  What achievements will last into eternity, other than the salvation of souls and the development (discipleship) of believers who seek to serve God?  Are you laying up treasures in Heaven?  Everything else will turn to dust.

• drdave@truthreallymatters.com