Would you characterize Napolean as a product and extension of the French revolut

Question:...or would you consider him a usurper who used the revolution to achieve his own selfish ambitions? Defend and support your answer.

thanks guys

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: ...or would you consider him a usurper who used the revolution to achieve his own selfish ambitions? Defend and support your answer.

thanks guys

He was definitely a product of the revolution. But not for the reason that most would think.

The toppling of the Bourbon dynasty sent shock waves through the royal houses of Europe. Sure, George III had some troubles in America and lost some 13 of his little colonies. But that incident a quarter of the way around the world wasn't that alarming. The Hapsburgs and Romanovs might well have had a good chuckle about it.

But the fall of the House of Bourbon, right in their midst, was a really scary event. This Republican bastard had to be stopped. So the crowns of Europe gathered their coalitions of armies together to deal with this problem. They attacked France.

Napoleaon won battles. France needed someone that won battles. He was not really the evil monster we have come to know in our Anglo-American education, though he was brutal in battle, and he was merciless in cutting down the insurrection in Paris in his early career. Of course he was caught up in the glory of it, just as all France was.

Napoleon was the savior of the Revolution. The Napoleonic wars were a direct result of the attempt of the monarchies of Europe to crush the Revolution.

Without a brilliant strategist to lead them, the French Republic would have been quickly crushed, and then the American Revolution would perish also. After all, do you think if the British were not involved in a bitter fight with Napoleon's armies in Spain, they would have failed to take back the American colonies in 1812-14? The French Republic was the bigger threat.

(Napoleon was finally stopped a couple of years later, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored for a brief period, as three million soldiers lay dead across the face of Europe. But the idea of a Republic had taken root and eventually flourished. It took another foreign invasion by the Prussians in 1871 to finally give the Republic its firm foundation.)

Hope that helps...