Katherine Reisen Western Civilizations
3-11-14 Napoleon vs. Hitler
Throughout history there have been numerous leaders and dictators. Each one leading their country in what they think is the best way. Some went on and were great leaders others were not such great leaders. However two people that I believe were very good leaders were Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. While Napoleon led his people into terrible revolution and ended up exiled to Saint Helena to live out the duration of his life. He was a brilliant war captain that was very well respected among the military community. Hitler is known as one the worst people that ever lived. He purposely went out and tried to exterminate an entire race, and anyone who wasn’t perfect. However if you think about it Hitler was a genius. He commanded an entire German army and got them to carry out his every demand. In many ways Hitler and Napoleon were very similar, but they were also very different.
Napoleon lived from the years 1769 to 1821. He became commander of the French Army in Italy in 1796 (pg. 589). He then made Austria make peace with Italy. From then he was completely in charge of the French Army as well as being the Emperor of France which gave him even more power. He led his men through great victories, all the while conquering much of Europe (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bonaparte_napoleon.shtml). In 1812 he decided that he wanted to take over Russia. He led his men into the harsh Russian terrain, thinking that they could easily and quickly take down the Russian Army. However he was very wrong. The Russians didn’t engage in any type of battle. Instead they went ahead and made sure that the French could no access any food or shelter, knowi...
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... to respect and obey what they wanted. They both led their countries in their own way and expand the territory of their countries. Both Napoleon and Hitler did this through military and political power. They won the hearts and trust of their countries, but they had ulterior motives. They both wanted to expand their countries all while trying to take total control over the world while doing it. Hitler wanted to create a perfect race and in order to do that he had to completely wipe out anyone who he didn’t think was perfect. Napoleon on the other hand didn’t want to eliminate any one race, he just wanted to take over all of Europe and eventually all of the world. Both of these leaders knew what they wanted to accomplish and they knew how go about doing it. I believe that both of these men could arguably be some of the most intelligent military minds that ever lived.
Napoleon Bonaparte ruled in France from 1789 to 1815. Napoleon came to power in 1789 and immediately became a powerful figure in the French government. However, some thought Napoleon was such a great leader. The Napoleonic Empire started to grow France’s territories. Some might have believed that Napoleon was too eager with his rule, while losing and failing to succeed against the power of England, in an attempt to blockade their trade, and of Russia, where he led his army to a defeat and retreat back to France. Even in his success over Spain, the battle still costed Napoleon and his army in men and resources. Napoleon was mostly viewed as a powerful and militaristic leader in some aspects, but others saw him as a coward and terrible leader in other ways.
“ They were all slain on the spot. And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood.”. Both Hitler and Napoleon can be seen as dictators, who destroyed everything in their path to reach their goal. Such as, Hitler destroying Germany and all its different types of people. Then when Napoleon went after Snowball because he wanted full control over the farm, but the way Snowball was “preaching” it would never be possible, so in order to achieve their goal they both destroyed something for Hitler in was Germany, but for Napoleon it was
“A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone” (Kissinger). Two leaders that stood alone by the end of their rules were Adolf Hitler and Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible was crowned the tsar of Russia in 1547 and ruled until he died in 1584. Ivan was known as an evil ruler who accused most of his noblemen of treason, killed thousands of his subjects, and murdered his son. When Ivan the Terrible died, Russia was left in financial and political ruin (Bogatyrev). Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889 but loved Germany. In 1921, Hitler became the leader of the German Worker’s Party, a nationalist and anti-Semitic group, and based the Nazi Party on them. Hitler was dictator of Germany from 1933 until he committed suicide in 1945, and started World War II and the Holocaust while in power (“Adolf Hitler”, Biography.com). Ivan the Terrible and Adolf Hitler showed that people who have a similar impact on the world usually have the same characteristics. Ivan the Terrible and Adolf Hitler were both confident in themselves and in their countries and very paranoid, which caused them to be aggressive rulers willing to do whatever they needed to meet their goals.
Hitler was both brilliant and evil. He won the following of nearly all German people, and brought a desperate country out of poverty and post-war dissolution. It was not by virtue that Hitler accomplished these things. Instead, it was through evil planning, mass rallies, emotional appeal to a vulnerable population, stirring military displays, and the eventual extermination of millions of innocent people: Jews (anyone with one or more Jewish grandparent), Communists, Negroes, the mentally ill, and anyone else in his way. He called his plan to rid the world of "inferior" human beings the "Final Solution." Hitler had a brilliant mind. He brought Germany out of post-war depression and create jobs, comradere, and a better economy, yet he was very evil. He used his power, coersion, and manipulation to convince Germans to committ unthinkable atrocites against millions of innocent people.
Napoleon's Conflict with Russia Napoleon was one of the greatest military leaders of all time. By 1812 Napoleon had expanded the territory of France all over Europe including Spain, Italy, Holland, and Switzerland. The countries that Napoleon did not directly control, he was usually allied with.
By that time, Napoleon had ruled France and surrounding countries for twenty years. Originally an officer in the French Army, he had risen to become Emperor among the political chaos following the French Revolution in which the old ruling French kings and nobility had been destroyed.
Napoleon was a great soldier that graduated from military school at the age of sixteen and quickly worked his way through the ranks. Napoleon was a brilliant leader in battle and consistently defeated armies larger than his own; including when he forced the Austrians to make peace after defeating four of their generals. In 1799 Napoleon and his colleagues overtook the French government and established power. He revised the constitution in 1802 to make himself consul for life, and then again in 1804 to make himself Emperor of France. Soon after Napoleon came to power he restructured the administration, simplified the court system, and began monitoring the schooling system; French law was also put in the Napoleon Code which guaranteed the rights and liberties that were gained through the revolution. Napoleons violent behavior caused war with Britain to break out, who allied with Russia and Austria. Prussia later allied themselves with Russia; creating a huge alliances against France and Napoleon. Napoleon successfully extended his reign over large parts of Europe and put each state under the Napoleon Code, which gave citizens new rights and privileges. In 1812 all of Europe turned against Napoleon, which lead to his exile in 1814. He regained power in 1815 just to loose it later that year. He died in exile in Saint Helena in 1821.
Napoleon was born in Corsica and went to military school where at that time France was at war with Britain, Austria and Russia. Being in the military he led the French army and achieved victory from the Austrians in 1797 who also negotiated with other nations such as Britain (MORAN 6-22). He established a new Napoleon code which had traditional laws resembling the new revolution in France. He later crowned himself emperor of France and combined social rehabilitation with his own arbitrary power. He also worked a covenant with the Catholic Church where there was a purification of Napoleon and Empress Josephine, who was from a wealthy family. His rise created a new empire which covered much of Europe apart from Britain (MORAN 6-22). He used his family, relatives and friends to power the European countries, hence to why his pride and aspiration led Europe to unite against him. His fall was brought by the detested of French rule all over
Josef Stalin, a politician from the earliest beginnings of his life, strove to achieve a national sense of power during his reign over the citizens of Russia. Adolf Hitler, however, a born high school dropout somewhat longed for a place in life. He rather fell into his role as a politician, after his brief shortcomings in arts and sciences. These two individuals developed varying ideas to put their controlling minds to work to lead their political parties in the direction of total domination of the state.
Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro are two sing party state dictators that when you compare them you find out they are reasonably similar. For example they both used the weakness of their enemies, manipulating propaganda and the pandering to the sense of nationalism of the public to gain support. There are some notable differences between them though such as how Castro came into power with a revolution while Hitler didn’t. Hitler was part of Nazi Party while Castro didn’t have a party. It was just him and his supporters. This situation though calls for the comparison not between Hitler and Castro directly but one of the policies implemented by them to determine if in any ways these two dictators ruled their countries in the same way.
Adolf Hitler is known to be one of the “greatest” leaders in history who had abused his powers and had shattered his country apart. Born in 1889 in Austria, Hitler abused his powers because of his greedy ego and because of his narcissism. It all became with Hitler organizing a party called the National Socialist, most popularly know as the Nazi Party. The rise of the Nazi Party was the thing that led to the start of Hitler’s rein and his abuse of power. The Nazi Party eventually led Adolf Hitler to come to rule and had given Hitler the chance to take control the entire nation.
Napoleon’s military career is what eventually led to his prominence. Napoleon began his military career above most of the other men his age. He rapidly made his way through the ranks eventually gaining a great support system. As the directory leaned more and more heavily upon the military, a coup d’état developed. Because of his military expertise, he immediately became first consul of France. The empire of France was soon to grow once Napoleon was in reign. In the 1790s the French army was near one million men, an advantage in the Austrian wars as well as future ventures. Wars raged with other European countries in the early 1800s. Napoleon was able to beat the continental coalition, thus gaining territory for France. France annexed some of Italy but also controlled states such as Spain, Holland ...
Napoleon Bonaparte is considered to be one of the greatest conquers and captains of modern times. In history perhaps no one person has ever aroused so many intense opposite emotions. Perhaps no one had ever claimed as much of the admiration, fear, and hatred of all men as did Napoleon. Napoleon was a man with many sides. He started many of his challenging voyages and defeats as a young child and they continued throughout his life. He had many accomplishments and many defeats that affect the world in which we live. Napoleon plays a very big part in history.
I believe that there are three main character traits that define a good leader; their ability to move a nation with their speeches, their ability to think about and plan for the future of their people and nation, and their ability to be able to command the nation 's forces correctly. All good and well defining character traits that I believe that Adolf Hitler possessed when he came to power in Germany during January 1933.
Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the famous figures in French history by the importance of his internal reforms. However, he remains primarily in global memory as one of the greatest military commanders in history. Indeed, Napoleon Bonaparte delivered more battles than Alexander the Great, Hannibal, or Caesar. His campaigns covered all Europe from Spain to Russia, without forgetting the East with Egypt and Syria. The French Emperor entered in the prestigious capitals of Europe, Milan, Vienna (twice), Berlin, Madrid and Moscow. Napoleon has greatly influenced the Western way of war, not only by the new organization of armies, but also by the optimization of different capabilities and the combination between leadership and creativity in the battlefields.