Post by Specialist290 on Jun 11, 2007 20:22:28 GMT -5
icejedi5 said:
I'm not sure if Napoleon is responsible for German or Italian unification movement, I'm going to have to research that now, sounds interesting. I do know that the men who pulled of those 2 unification where pretty amazing people.Well, even if the two countries would have united eventually, Napoleon certainly sped up the process by sweeping away numerous old, decrepit institutions (the Holy Roman Empire being the biggest example) and consolidating the thousands of petty city-states and minor patchwork fiefdoms into more unified, larger territories. He also imported the idea of French-style modern nationalism, which promoted unity through a common heritage, language, etc. (which, ironically, was later turned against him). Then again, as I mentioned before, there was the Code Napoleon, which replaced all those thousands of homegrown feudal legal codes with a single template.
And yes, Bismarck and (the Italian guy whose name escapes me at the moment...) were indeed some pretty shrewd statesmen.
My vote is still on Alexander, the man spread much of the Greek's ideas into the world. Founder of the Hellenistic period. Without him spreading these ideas into the east, the chances of a renaissance period would have been greatly diminished.
You're certainly correct in that regard--I'm not even going to debate that point
I do know that Napoleon had some pretty revolutionary tactics. Didn't the guy who beat Napoleon at Waterloo use Napoleon's tactics on Napoleon?
I'm actually not really sure... I haven't studied the battle of Waterloo in too much detail (ironically), but I do believe I read somewhere that it was the use of infantry squares that broke the last desperate charge of his Old Guards, so I think you're correct.