Napoleon Bonaparte
Emperor of the French, architect of the Napoleonic administrative state
Also known as: Napoleon, Napoleon I, Emperor Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), Emperor of the French 1804–1814/1815, is the subject of Quigley's 1938 Harvard doctoral thesis on the public administration of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and a recurrent benchmark for centralized administrative state-building in the The Evolution of Civilizations and Tragedy and Hope.
Subject of the doctoral thesis
Quigley's earliest sustained scholarly work — The Public Administration of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, Harvard 1938 — concerns the administrative apparatus Napoleon built in his Kingdom of Italy after 1805. The dissertation, revised for publication around 1971, was "never published because over-specialized experts who read the version revised for publication persisted in rejecting the aspects of the book in which they were not specialists" (Napoleonic Italy 2; Quigley Lectures 2). Quigley's discovery — central to his later civilizational work — was "that the French state as it developed under Napoleon was based largely on Italian precedents. For example, while the French state before 1789 had no budgets or accounts, Napoleon's budgets in both France and Italy were strikingly similar to the budgets of the Duchy of Milan in the sixteenth century" (Quigley Lectures 3).
Civilizational placement
In Quigley's wider history Napoleon is repeatedly cast as the last of the great mercantilists and the figure whose attempt at universal monarchy was broken by the new industrial-financial system being built across the Channel. The Channel was the "discontinuity in space" that protected Britain from "attacks from Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Hitler" (WS 45); the new Bank of England-led credit system became "one of her chief weapons in the victory over Napoleon in 1815. The emperor, as the last great mercantilist, could not see money in any but concrete terms" (T&H 64). The Industrial-and-Agricultural revolutions "made Napoleon's military-political victory of 1810 impossible to maintain" (T&H 25). For the The Milner Group, Britain's mission was framed as opposing "the forces of Philip II, of Louis XIV, of Napoleon, and of Wilhelm II" (AAE 112) — Napoleon as the canonical continental hegemon.
Administrative legacy
Quigley regards "the development of public administration in the Napoleonic states as a major step in the evolution of the modern state" (EoC 7). The new French armies of Napoleon "defeated the old, bedecorated forces of Austria and Prussia" (EoC 98), demonstrating that the centralized administrative-conscript system could outperform the dynastic ancien régime. Napoleon's defeat in Russia in 1812 enters Quigley's spatial-power argument: distance and terrain create discontinuities of power that "the usual discontinuities in space which reduce the application of power drastically are usually accidents of terrain" — and Tolstoy's conclusion about Napoleon's failure parallels the same fate that befell "the Teutonic Knights in 1242, the Swedes in 1709, or Hitler in 1941" (WS 42, 60).
Cited in
- napoleonic-italy · p. 4 Quigley
In 1805, soon after Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the French, the Italian Republic (which had had the same areas as the previous Cisalpine Republic – primarily Lombardy and the Romagna) was transformed into the Kingdom of Italy.
- quigley-lectures · p. 3 Quigley
The French state as it developed under Napoleon was based largely on Italian precedents. For example, while the French state before 1789 had no budgets or accounts, Napoleon's budgets in both France and Italy were strikingly similar to the budgets of the Duchy of Milan in the sixteenth century.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 25 Quigley
The new Age of Expansion which made Napoleon's military-political victory of 1810 impossible to maintain had begun in England long before.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 64 Quigley
Her chief weapons in the victory over Napoleon in 1815. The emperor, as the last great mercantilist, could not see money in any but concrete terms.
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 60 Quigley
That was Tolstoy's conclusion in regard to Napoleon's defeat in Russia, but, since a similar fate also occurred to other invaders of Russia, like the Teutonic Knights in 1242, the Swedes in 1709, or Hitler in 1941, it seems likely that there may be something more than simple accident.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 98 Quigley
The new French armies of Napoleon defeated the old, bedecorated forces of Austria and Prussia.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 112 Quigley
Britain with the forces of Philip II, of Louis XIV, of Napoleon, and of Wilhelm II. Thus, to this Group, Britain stood as the defender of all that was fine or civilized in the modern world.