“[Bonaparte] mused that Alexander ‘when scarcely beyond the age of boyhood, with a mere handful of brave troops, conquered a quarter of the globe.'”
By Joseph Stiles
NAPOLEON Bonaparte famously listed Alexander the Great among seven great military commanders whose campaigns should be studied again and again.[1] Indeed, Alexander would remain an important figure to Napoleon throughout his life, commenting frequently on him during his exile on the island of St. Helena.
A childhood friend of Napoleon Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne would recount that Napoleon would spend hours in the library reading the ancient histories of Plutarch, Arrian of Nicomedia and Quintus Curtius Rufus whose works deal with the life and campaigns of Alexander the Great.
“[Napoleon] ran over Arrian with great delight, but had little taste for Quintus Curtius,” remembered Bourrienne.[2]
Young Napoleon’s assessment of the two ancient writers makes sense taking into account his interest in warfare. Arrian’s work Anabasis of Alexander is a detailed military account while Curtius’ History of Alexander focuses more on Alexander as a tyrant.
In 1786, a teenage Napoleon would list Alexander among historical figures who inflame the soul and serve as guides to men.[3] Later as ruler of France, Napoleon would include Alexander among busts of famous men he placed in the Tuileries Palace.[4]
Napoleon viewed Alexander, along with other great military leaders in history, as the driving force behind success.
“The personality of the general is indispensable,” wrote Napoleon. “He is the head, he is the all of an army…It was not the Macedonian phalanx which reached India, but Alexander.”[5]
He mused that Alexander “when scarcely beyond the age of boyhood, with a mere handful of brave troops, conquered a quarter of the globe” and further praised his campaigns as “profoundly calculated, boldly executed and prudently managed.”[6]
On the other hand, Napoleon could at times be critical of Alexander’s generalship remarking on one occasion that he was a “brave soldier” but conducted “no fine maneuvers worthy of a great general.”[7]
Napoleon could also be critical of Alexander’s accomplishments and strategy. He doesn’t seem to have been impressed by Alexander’s Persian opponents remarking how they had been easily defeated in the past by Greeks and that they presented few “obstacles.”[8]
The Persian army’s alleged feebleness is a common criticism used to diminish Alexander’s conquests and can be found even in ancient works such as Julian’s Caesars and Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. The ancient Greco-Roman writers typically portrayed Persians as weak and cowardly. Modern historiography in contrast paints a much more balanced picture as to the Persian capabilities.
Napoleon was also critical of Alexander as a strategist wondering “why, after Issus, Alexander did not follow up Darius instead of wasting his time at the siege of Tyre.”[9] The period Napoleon is referring to occurred at the end of 333 BCE when Alexander defeated the Persian King Darius III at the Battle of Issus and instead of pursuing him into Mesopotamia occupied the Mediterranean coast and besieged the island city of Tyre. Alexander’s strategy can be explained as part of a continuing attempt by the king to eliminate the Persian navy as a threat by capturing its ports.[10] Capturing Tyre ultimately took seven months and had the downside of giving Darius time to assemble a new army.
As a ruler, Napoleon praised Alexander’s “political astuteness” and saw him as someone who successfully combined the dual roles of “a soldier and a politician”[11] and who “proved himself at once a distinguished warrior, politician, and legislator.”[12] He admired Alexander’s ability to gain the “love and trust of conquered nations” and his embracing of Persian customs. Napoleon further agreed with Alexander’s decision to execute his second in command, Parmenion.
“He was right to have had Parmenio killed, when, like a fool, he was finding fault with his sovereign for having given up Greek manners,” Bonaparte wrote.[13]
At the same time Napoleon, echoing Curtius, took a dim view on what he saw as the corruption of Alexander’s morals.
“He commenced his career with the mind of Trajan,” Napoleon wrote. “But he closed it with the heart of Nero, and the manners of Heliogabalus.”[14]
Trajan is remembered as one of Rome’s greatest emperors while Nero and Heliogabalus have been condemned to history as tyrannical figures.
Napoleon’s emulation of Alexander looks to have been at its height during his 1798 invasion of Egypt, a place the Macedonian ruler also conquered.
“Europe does not supply enough of it (glory) for me,” Napoleon remarked to Bourrienne A few months prior to the Egyptian invasion. “I must seek it in the East, the fountain of glory.”[15]
Napoleon, like Alexander, found himself fighting a protracted conflict in a foreign land. Yet, he understood the propaganda value behind Alexander’s homage to native religions and in particular his famed visit to the Oracle at Siwa calling it “a great stroke of policy on Alexander’s part… It enabled him to conquer Egypt.” One can see how Napoleon’s attempts to integrate himself into Egypt’s Islamic society mirrored Alexander. Decades later looking back on his failed Egyptian venture Napoleon would say: “If I had stayed in the East, I should probably have founded an empire like Alexander, if I had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where I would have made prayers and genuflexions before the Prophet’s tomb.”[16]
Joseph Stiles is the author of Alexander the Great and Persia: From Conqueror to King of Asia (Pen & Sword, 2022). He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Temple University and recently gained his master’s degree in World History from Norwich University, Vermont, where his research centered on Alexander the Great and his policies in the East. He now works as a teacher and lives in suburban Philadelphia.
Footnotes
[1] Napoleon, The Officer’s Manual: Napoleon’s Maxims of War (Richmond, VA: West & Johnston, 1862), 159: The officer’s manual. Napoleon’s maxims of war : Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
[2] Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Bourrienne’s Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, ed. W. C. Armstrong (Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son, 1851), 17: Bourrienne’s Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte: : Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de, 1769-1834 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
[3] Napoleon, Sur l’Amour De La Patrie (On The Love Of The Country): https://napoleonbonaparte.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/napoleon-bonaparte-sur-lamour-de-la-patrie/.
[4] Bourrienne, 135.
[5] J. F. C. Fuller, Generalship, Its Diseases and Their Cure: A Study of the Personal Factor in Command (Harrisburg, PA: Military Service Publishing Co., 1936), 30: Generalship, its Diseases and their Cure: A Study of the Personal Factor in Command : Fuller, J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles), 1878-1966 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
[6] Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Comte de Las Cases, The Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon, vol. 4 (London: Henry Colburn, 1835), 189: The Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon – Google Books.
[7] Gaspard Gourgaud, Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1904), 207: Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena with General Baron Gourgaud : together with the journal kept by Gourgaud on their journey from Waterloo to St. Helena : Gourgaud, Gaspard, Baron, 1783-1852 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
[8] Ibid, 207.
[9] Ibid, 208.
[10] Plutarch, Life of Alexander 17.2-3: Plutarch • Life of Alexander (Part 1 of 7).
[11] Gourgaud, 208-209.
[12] Las Cases, 189.
[13] Gourgaud, 209.
[14] Las Cases, 190.
[15] Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895), 125: Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte – Google Books.
[16] Gourgaud, 209.
