‘Napoleon Was Nothing More Than a Dictator’. How Far Do You Agree with This View of Napoleons Rule of France?
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- Category: History: European
- Date Submitted: 01/24/2011 12:55 PM
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By 1804 Napoleon was the sole ruler and Emperor of France, he had crowned himself Emperor on the 2nd December of that year. He had decided that the French government would not be going back to the political chaos and arguments that had preceded his reign as First Consul and Emperor in the 1790’s. Napoleon wanted his political and military systems to be decisive and efficient. After he had crowned himself Emperor he, alone, controlled these systems in France. In this sense there is no argument that he was in fact a dictator. However, this was not necessarily a bad thing for the France of that period and some historians describe him as the ‘Savior of France’ as his enlightened despotic methods benefited France, thus making him far more than just the stereotypical type of dictator that we have come to expect?
Napoleon’s position of First Consul, then First Consul for Life and ultimately Emperor of France obviously gave him a great deal of power within the state. By putting a plebiscite to the people of France to approve each promotion he cleverly gave the impression that he had been elected democratically at each major constitutional change. This tactic allowed Napoleon to maintain a veneer of democracy, whereas in truth these plebiscites were not democratic as he used his army to vote for him en masse and used them to employ intimidating tactics to fix the vote, this voting was not representative of the entire population and as a last resort the result of the vote would not adhered to if the outcome was not what Napoleon required. In this way when he first took power it was far from democratic although it appeared as though it was. This was, in fact, a form of propaganda, as was the idea of Three Consuls in the Consulate as Napoleon was the only one who had any power, even before he crowned himself Emperor. This suggests that Napoleon was a dictator who sought to conceal his power behind heavily fixed plebiscites and a constitutional façade. He manipulated the...
Napoleon’s position of First Consul, then First Consul for Life and ultimately Emperor of France obviously gave him a great deal of power within the state. By putting a plebiscite to the people of France to approve each promotion he cleverly gave the impression that he had been elected democratically at each major constitutional change. This tactic allowed Napoleon to maintain a veneer of democracy, whereas in truth these plebiscites were not democratic as he used his army to vote for him en masse and used them to employ intimidating tactics to fix the vote, this voting was not representative of the entire population and as a last resort the result of the vote would not adhered to if the outcome was not what Napoleon required. In this way when he first took power it was far from democratic although it appeared as though it was. This was, in fact, a form of propaganda, as was the idea of Three Consuls in the Consulate as Napoleon was the only one who had any power, even before he crowned himself Emperor. This suggests that Napoleon was a dictator who sought to conceal his power behind heavily fixed plebiscites and a constitutional façade. He manipulated the...