Most of the article is not about why we'd be better off - not to say it isn't worth reading, but at the end we find:
"If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world."
Some arguable points, but Napoleon was... shall we say, capricious. It seems naive to think that all this would have happened the way it's put there.
Still, it makes for fun speculation. If you like that, you should read Creasy's "15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World," at least if you don't mind a bit (well, more than a bit) of Anglocentrism. There's a lot of this "if things had gone the other way" stuff and it's great conversation fodder.
Also, Hugo's narrative of Waterloo in "Les Miserables" is wonderful and worth reading if you are at all intrigued.
For as much as history portrays Napoleon as a dictator (which he was), it neglects that most of his adversaries were ALSO dictators who did equally horrible things.
In Napoleon's mind, he wasn't as much conquering Europe as liberating it from the clutches of nobility. Napoleon viewed himself as a better kind of dictator than the other European monarchs: one who rose to power through his own merit and who selected men for tasks based on their abilities, not their bloodlines. This narrative was decidedly less popular outside of France -- which had essentially executed all of its nobility in the preceding decades, so there was nobody left to disagree. But it really was a war of ideals over who should rule: an arbitrary (and increasingly inbred) line of inherited nobility, or the best man for the job?
If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, Europe would have saved itself a century of war. But the USA would also not exist in its current form -- much of the reason for the rise of American dominance in the 20th century was because Europe was rebuilt after WWII by the American war machine cranking out large quantities of steel and industrial machinery.
And who knows how the 20th century would have turned out without the US as a global superpower. Maybe without war and famine in 19th century Europe, there's never a migration and the central US remains as uninhabited as Siberia. It's fun to think of the "what if?" questions,
I think Napoleon likely would have allied with the US over the long term. The US did not have the baggage of nobility, was ruled by enlightenment thinkers, and we already had a common enemy in the British.
That said, the US was a sparsely-populated backwater outpost at the time with only about 7 million inhabitants (a million of whom were slaves). For comparison, the population of Europe during the same time was close to 140 million. We simply didn't have the manpower, infrastructure or money to meaningfully contribute to a European conflict at the time.
Not to mention the enormous logistical difficulties of landing and supplying a cross-Atlantic amphibious army large enough to conquer a continent in the age of sail.
That would have never happened without British involvement, since they controlled the sea. Furthermore, as the article pointed out, Napoleon and America shared similar ideals. Finally, fighting a war in your homeland is infinitely easier than the supply lines Napoleon would have had to maintain to fight in America. It would have been absurdly expensive and would have opened France up to attack from its unfriendly neighbors. In conclusion, I do not think there is a likely scenario that envisions an America under Napoleonic rule.
True up to a point after you crown your self emperor any pretence of republicanism is long gone one option would be
1 Napoleon wins in Europe does a deal with UK give me Europe and you can have the Americas oh and I want Lousiana back one of my cousins wants to be a king.
or
2 Napoleon stays true his ideals and backs slave rebellions in the south and caribbean
Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States of America, so most likely he didn't care too much about this region. Granted, he may have been afraid of not being able to maintain it because of a naval inferiority, but I don't think expending in America was amongst his priorities.
Considering that America and France both shared a common enemy - Britain - during that time, that would be highly unlikely. The Louisiana Purchase also made that prospect unlikely, as did Napoleon's explicit admiration of American ideals and leadership (as the article pointed out).
What reason would Napoleon have to attempt (and probably fail; the American navy was not nearly as much of a pushover as you state the army to have been) to launch a trans-Atlantic campaign against what was historically an ally and a strong cultural/political influence?
Whenever I see a relatively respectable source, singing the praises of blood-thirty, ego-driven maniacs, I start to think that maybe the crazies who go on about giant conspiracies controlling everything might be onto something. (Either that, or the Smithsonian's editorial judgement is slipping.)
We could debate the efficacy of the skills that were exhibited by imperial Chinese civil service exams, particularly at the contemporary era as Napoleon. A system that selects for devoting years or decades to studying Confucius and various commentaries thereon, and in learning to write formulaic "eight-legged" essays in an archaic dialect is meritocratic to some extent (although, to have the resources to adequately prepare for the exams required either the resources of the landed-gentry class, or pooling the resources of an extended clan to support a candidate to float all boats later through nepotism).
Now that I think about it, I really should have written my senior thesis on comparisons between the 21st century US and Qing China after the gilded age of the Qianlong emperor...
I claim that you could quite reasonably argue "we'd be better off" if you were allowed to alter any single event in past history. It should be called "proof by fantasy land".
It's called counterfactual reasoning actually. And of course you can make an argument for any event. But I doubt you can make a convincing one.
You are literally suggesting that it's impossible to learn from history.
Even further, if we can't speculate about the past, with everything we know now, then we can't possibly change the future. That is, you can't possibly predict if any decision will lead to a good outcome or not.
E.g we can't know if starting a war will be good. Or that you should prevent global warming.
As someone above mentioned, you can't even say that genocide is bad.
The corollary is that if you're allowed to argue that things are the best they can possibly be (or better than alternatives) because of a single event/condition, this is also "proof by fantasy land".
"Thank god we tightened up security or there would be another 9/11!"
Depends on the single event that led to their victory but you could easily argue that the British Empire would have been better off if it had never gone to war with Germany in 1939. Its a war that basically bankrupted Britain, caused the collapse of the empire, pushed Britain from being the major superpower into second division status, led to the dominance of its major rival (America), and has generally blighted the last 60 years of British history.
Humanity is better off because Germany lost, but Britain? Not so much.
Actually, WW1 is what led to the demise of the UK, not WW2. WW2 was just the denouement. The generations that were lost on the Somme and Flanders crippled the empire.
WWI was the cause of the demise of pretty much all of Europe, directly resulting in heavy generational damage to Western Europe, kickstarting the communist revolution in Russia (which might have been tolerable in and of itself under Leninist or Trotskyist rule, but was then classifiable as "demise" once Stalin was in power), and (in the end) imposing excessive punishments on Germany post-war that caused severe economic problems and spurred the desire for a return to glory - one promised (and briefly realized) by the Nazi party.
You can't convincingly argue it because it requires knowledge too far in the future. Who knows what would have happened a hundred years down the line? Maybe shortly after winning, Nazism would fall to another German political party. Maybe a Europe unified under Germany would be a more powerful Europe able to lead the world and avoid the missteps the USA has made. Maybe global conquest, despite short-term suffering, really does lead to the greater good under one government.
IMO it's impossible to say what the long term result of a German victory would have been.
Well, maybe someone who happens to be Jewish will turn out to be a blood thirsty dictator in the future and destroy the world, and that person would have never been born if his ancestors had been killed by the nazis. It's really far fetched, but one could argue lots of things by making assumptions about changing the past.
A very interesting historical read with a biased view pro-Napoleon, but the facts seems pretty well explained.
Only the last paragraph briefly discuss the title, as if the author could have predicted the future for 150 years. But as the french proverb says: "avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille" [1]
As several users have pointed out, this article's content is misrepresented by its title, so we've changed it. Suggestions for a better one are welcome.
The article reads a little weirdly, in fact, as if large chunk of it were missing before the abrupt change of subject at the end. But it's still a fine historical piece.
"If Napoleon had remained emperor of France for the six years remaining in his natural life, European civilization would have benefited inestimably. The reactionary Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia and Austria would not have been able to crush liberal constitutionalist movements in Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere; pressure to join France in abolishing slavery in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean would have grown; the benefits of meritocracy over feudalism would have had time to become more widely appreciated; Jews would not have been forced back into their ghettos in the Papal States and made to wear the yellow star again; encouragement of the arts and sciences would have been better understood and copied; and the plans to rebuild Paris would have been implemented, making it the most gorgeous city in the world."
Some arguable points, but Napoleon was... shall we say, capricious. It seems naive to think that all this would have happened the way it's put there.
Still, it makes for fun speculation. If you like that, you should read Creasy's "15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World," at least if you don't mind a bit (well, more than a bit) of Anglocentrism. There's a lot of this "if things had gone the other way" stuff and it's great conversation fodder.
Also, Hugo's narrative of Waterloo in "Les Miserables" is wonderful and worth reading if you are at all intrigued.