Danny Weissman:
What about Napoleon? He was also responsible for the death of
many people, isn't it?
Regev:
You're quite right. Napoleon did cause the death of many people,
that's right. But Napoleon did not want to cause the destruction of all these
people, least of all the death of his French troops.
Napoleon was a fighter and fighting means death, sometimes
the death of many people. You could say that war is always bad. I wouldn't
say so. Sometimes, war is unavoidable, when the other alternative is worse.
Take for example all the soldiers who died while fighting against Nazism in
World War II. Would you prefer the alternative?
Napoleon did fight for a cause and did bring the message of the
French Revolution to many countries in Europe. Bethoven wrote music and dedicated it
to him (and then changed it when Napoleon became an emperor). Heinrich Heine wrote
the poem "The two grenadiers" about the feelings of his soldiers to Napoleon.
I wouldn't have put Napoleon in the list of people who were perpetrators of
horrible crimes, because of their ideology.
If you want to respond to either claim, type in
your comments.
What is all this discussion?
Back to reactions page
Back to Regev's home page
Date: 10 April 1997