Hero or Villain. Which best describes Napoleon?
Napoleon is seen as a hero by some people, and some people see him as a villain. It depends if you’re French or an enemy of France. Both sides have many points supporting that he was a hero and that he was a villain. It can be argued that he was a hero because he was a strong military leader which allowed him to expanded French territory, and for the fact he modernized France. Events that lead to him being seen as a villain were the battles he fought, and the amount of soldiers that died.
In his ascension to power in France, his people considered him a hero because he stopped all the bloodshed from the revolution and prevented a return of the Bourbon monarchy.
Once he had his domestic power base in order, he turned to France's borders, which were under attack by reactionary foreign powers, who wanted to restore Bourbon sovereignty to France and prevent the revolutionary ideals from spreading to their lands. He quickly defeated Frances enemies and over the next decade he put France in a constant state of war. As well as enlarging the French empire, Napoleon made changes to the countries which shared a border with it. Napoleon was a strong and powerful military commander, he fought many of his enemies and it took seven coalitions to defeat him. His reasoning for war was to spread his ideas of the French Revolution. As he continued to enter battles winning land he would then make a family member the king. Napoleon himself because King of Italy, his brother Louis became King of Holland and his brother Josepha became king of Naples. With Napoleon only allowing direct family to have control of a country it appears as though he is trying to gain as much power as he possibly can to for a strong alliance among the other countries.
