Napoleon – Another Of Churchill's Blind Spots – The Romantic Worship Of So-called 'great Men'

By Author: Craig Read
Total Articles: 33
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Churchill had a few blind spots. Rhodes-James in his excellent book on Churchill's 'failures', highlights some of the problems with Churchill. Respecting and appreciating Churchill is not the same as veneration. Rhodes outlines the great man's failures – most of them due to defects in personality and psychology, and a too intense romanticism, which obscured common-sense and good judgement. Churchill's noisy critics, a rather shrill, excessive and mean lot; were right in their core critique of the British lion. Churchill was indeed unsteady, unpredictable, and prone to severe errors of judgement and muddified thinking.
A clear case of Churchillian romanticism and misguided ideals was the creation of the United Nations. While the original intent of the organization in the post-war world, was lofty and elevated, the mutation of the utopian charter into the current morass of corruption, fraud, anti-Western sentiment and Marxist madness was all too easy to forecast even in 1946. The UN is now a force if not of evil; at least of irrationality and anti-civilizational mores. It needs to be dissolved.
Another example of ...
... Churchill's defective thinking is on Napoleon. In a recent issue of Finest Hour Magazine, there is an article on Winston's obsession with Napoleon veneration. It is written by Mr. Packwood of the Churchill archives centre. He tries to defend Churchill's preoccupation with one of Europe's most atrocious manifestations of despotism. There is however no defence of admiration for Napoleon. Anyone who prays at that altar suffers from serious issues of judgement and perspective.
As Packwood relates Churchill kept a bust of the mad Emperor on his desk. Churchill dismissed Wellington as inferior [certainly a remarkably nescient claim], and aspired it would appear, to imitate in part his great hero, the butcher of Europe. Churchill defended Napoleon claiming that he was not another Hitler, and a man of 'greatness'. But what greatness did Napoleon effect ? 10 million dead. The treasures of Europe plundered for his and his family's benefit. Retarding European development by 30 years thanks to war and wealth destruction. The erection of a despotism and centralized control. So much for the 'values' of the French Revolution.
Packwood quotes Paul Johnson on the real historical legacy of Hitler's precursor [sans the Jew hate]:
“The First World War itself was total warfare of the type Bonaparte's methods adumbrated, and in the political anarchy that emerged from it, a new brand of ideological dictator took Bonaparte's methods of government as a model, first in Russia, then in Italy, and finally in Germany, with many smaller countries following suit. The totalitarian state of the 20th century was the ultimate progeny of the Napoleonic reality and myth.”
Indeed. All true. Totalitarianism was Bonapartism. Apparently Churchill stood for democracy, freedom, a division of powers and civilization. There is no defence for his love for the mad Corsican, a man who like Lenin and Hitler undoubtedly suffered from mental derangement and extreme psycho-pathological illness. It is another example of Churchill's lack of judgement, perspective, and application of intelligence that he venerated such a blood-soaked criminal thug as Napoleon. He should have known better.

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Churchill Life has some interesting insights into some of the failures of an otherwise brilliant individual. You can find all of this in the Churchill Life Analysis .