Napoleon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Napoleon - Essay Example On the other hand, there are a number of other historians who consider Napoleon as a real military despot who was a tyrant, aggressor and autocrat who cared for his fame and popularity alone. This paper seeks to explore the military and personal life of Napoleon and attempts to show how criticisms and interpretations of Napoleon’s life varied from one historian (researcher) to another. Ralph Jean-Paul in his article entitled â€Å"Napoleon Bonapartes Guide to Leadership† suggests a number of reasons why Napoleon should be regarded as one of the best leaders the world has ever seen. For him, Napoleon’s leadership style included â€Å"all of the major and minor characteristics that make a brilliant leader†1. For him, Napoleon was a great motivator and charismatic speaker who could win the trust and loyalty of his generals and soldiers ‘by promising them victory and glory’, employing ‘new ways to make things work’, appreciating and awarding the achievement of his soldiers, and leading the battles from the front. However, Ralph Jean-Paul also argues that it was his deteriorating confidence after his loss to the Russians in the War of the Sixth and his lack of trust in his followers that culminated in his ultimate defeat (Jean-Paul). Similarly, Jared Stenzel tries to answer whether Napoleon was a real hero or a tyrant and he purports that Napoleon was more of a tyrant than a hero. The author argues that Napoleon was very much a tyrant as he never believed his followers and entrusted people to spy on them, either jailed or killed people who opposed him, and never offered freedom of speech and expression to his followers and the newspapers2. Justin Patterson, in this respect offers a balanced view of why Napoleon was considered to be a real French revolutionary who was a hero to his people and loved his nation so much and how he turned out to be a military despot in the latter part of his military career.