Part One: Napoleon III: The Worst Bonaparte | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

[@michael_mcgowan]

I don't understand what's so confusing about a man named Napoleon with a brother, Louis, whose children are named Napoleon Charles, Napoleon Louis, and Charles Louis-Napoleon. It's a simple, perfectly sensible way to name your brother's kids for him.

[@Toradoshi12]

Currently listening to this on the 48th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

[@azryve]

32:50 I like how even while making a correction, Robert still makes an error and can't get straight how many Alexanders and Nikolais were in that god forsaken empire

[@JuliusSiezure]

u need jesus

[@leviadragon99]

@@JuliusSiezure Jesus needs a more chill fanclub.

[@youmukonpaku3168]

@@JuliusSiezure my homie Jesus takes care of the eavestroughs while I clean up the gardens, we're a good team. You looking for him?

[@sholem_bond]

I think the other reason that the Bourbons are freaked out by Napoleon, and other European monarchs too, beyond the whole "getting dethroned thing" (which is a pretty big factor admittedly)... Is that Napoleon's regimes kind of expose how fake monarchism is. Like, the only reason monarchs are ideologically supposed to be fit to rule, and no one else is, is because the monarch is superior to everyone else in some way. Traditionally, they're literally chosen by God (allegedly). Even if the Bonapartes have some traditionally noble blood (?), they're not a "royal" family until the first Napoleon. And Napoleon becomes a "king" the old-fashioned way - he just conquers stuff, and sometimes installs his family as the other kings/ruling nobility around him, and calls them all royalty afterwards. He's not visibly chosen by God; he just has a successful army and decides that he's king. This kind of exposes how fake the concept of "royalty" is, because Napoleon isn't demonstrably special, except that he's good at conquering stuff, but he still gets to be a king, and so do some of his relatives. So ideologically as well as physically, Napoleon is a threat to the Bourbons and other royal families, in some ways at least (he's not based or anything for this, obviously). He's an inconvenient reminder of how the sausage actually gets made.

[@ricksimon9867]

He is visibly chosen by God - through his victories. If you have a long-lasting dynasty, all the victories are claimed by that dynasty. But because of the chaos after 1791, the victories were now claimed by the generals, and Napoleon was the most successful general, so he was able to stage a coup and make himself emperor. But this does not mean that the people suddenly all realised: "But ANYONE could be a great general!" - even though they had JUST witnessed exactly that. Do not make the cardinal mistake among historians: Do not assume that people in the early 1800s thought just like modern people.

[@Temp445]

He wasn’t just a conqueror, he created the code napoleon which we still use some of the ideas today. He created many infrastructure projects for the French people and got the nation of France out of debt by creating his own bank. Of course he did bankrupt himself and eventually started to take loans from foreign investors but for a time France was the only country without debt to someone in Europe. History has named him as a conquering tyrant when really most of the wars he fought were declared on him. Writing constitutions and forming republics in his 20’s before he even became Emperor. Also realize history is written by the victor and who won? The British.

[@ricksimon9867]

@@Temp445 Ah, the good old, "he wasn't all bad" claim. Germany was divided once. In the Eastern part, women had equality. Great, right? No. The state made it so because they wanted to exploit more labourers. Napoleon did what he did to be able to control the subjugated countries. He did nothing for their benefit, nor for the French People. He just wanted to keep expanding his power. _

[@Temp445]

@@ricksimon9867 never said he was a great man, learn to read. You yourself said he was chosen by god through his victories, and in the Bible God does not like men who murder and pillage. And comparing France to Germany is irrelevant especially when you bring up hitler compared to napoleon. Yes napoleon killed people but he did not burn them alive and leave them to rot in the mud. Read before you comment again.

[@templarw20]

The talk about Napoleon as a military commander is apt. Took a course in college that was "History of Warfare: Alexander to Napoleon." Was quite interesting, and yeah, the American Civil War was the pivot. Also, the professor had a thing where he draws a distinction between General Bonaparte, and Emperor Napoleon. The former was a MUCH better commander and strategist than the latter...

[@MrGksarathy]

Emperor Napoleon definitely let it all get to his head.

[@templarw20]

@@MrGksarathy I believe his statement was that he lost all respect for Emperor Napoleon as a military commander when he visited Waterloo and walked the ground.

[@TVAVStudios]

Sophie gets them on topic @ 4:10 if anyone's curious.

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

That's unfortunate.

[@BenjaminGlatt]

I don't need Benadryl, I have severe ADHD.

[@sholem_bond]

So caffeine is your Benadryl*? Or does ADHD prevent allergies? I don't get it (*Me too, at least sometimes.)

[@BenjaminGlatt]

@@sholem_bond without going back to listen, I'm gonna guess one of them mentioned having taken Benadryl and having a hard time focusing.

[@jfu5222]

Do an episode on the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum where The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald plays on a loop. I've lived on the shores of Gitcheegumee and I'm a Gordon Lightfoot fan, but what an unbearable torturous work environment!

[@dylanrodrigues]

Wasn’t expecting a brother of Napoleon to really express how awful war is and one should avoid it as much as possible.

[@MrGksarathy]

I mean, he had firsthand experience.

[@renshin4603]

Superior, they say, never gives up her dead.

[@natmorse-noland9133]

I will defend Lake Superior until my dying breath. You'll never get a drop of her sweet, cold water!

[@mikeschenk4730]

I think you needed a flowchart for the family identification...

[@ricksimon9867]

It is funny when you correct some stuff. There is A LOT more stuff that is wrong 🤣 36:22 is also incorrect. It was not that Napoleon did not want to hug his heir; he wanted Soult to hug him to form a bond because he (Napoleon) might die in battle.

[@sholem_bond]

When she's your wife, I'm pretty sure you go from "simp" to "wife guy." (I love simps and wife guys tbh, it's one of my favorite things about Napoleon - probably my only favorite thing, actually.)

[@MrGksarathy]

I would say the same, except Napoleon and Josephine's relationship was extremely toxic from Egypt onwards. Simping was not good for Napoleon.

[@shy-watcher]

Napoleon Bonaparte is the John Wick of royal Europe.

[@trioptimum9027]

Kind of! Big simps, also everyone's scared of them! But he's a big drama guy too, which is very enjoyable. You might say he was a *French/Italian* John Wick. You know: Bonaparte tears his coat off, throws it down, and declares "If any man among you would shoot his Emperor, let him fire!" Keanu wouldn't do that. He'd probably say "do it or put the gun down" and just stand there. (I don't know, I don't have a great sense of how Wick talks, but he'd be understated, not dramatical.)

[@DrZaius3141]

Napoleon (I.)'s Egypt excursion went wildly differently. Not only did he heavily lobby for it because he wanted to show everyone what a manly general he was, but it was also an absolute unequivocal failure. It was only through massive propaganda (which is the only thing he was actually good at) and the fact that Egypt was a virtual world away and the additional fact that almost everyone who went to Egypt with him died that he somehow spun it as a victory. Also, his other victories were essentially only won by throwing waves of humans at the problem. Due to the French army being drafted while the rest of Europe mostly relied on mercenaries, he always had more bodies to win. Just some input from a history teacher here, carry on.

[@Temp445]

His other victory’s were essentially throwing waves of ppl at the enemy lines? You have no idea what you’re talking about. The battles where that happened HE LOST. Battle of Eylau, Borodino, and Aspern were all battles lost because of that. The Italian campaign was all about flanking the enemy and fighting with light infantry and being mobile. The flying columns of napoleon. Austerlitz, Friedland, Jena, battle of alcole, I can go on and on. For a history teacher you should know not to just chalk something up based off the information given to us by his enemy’s. Throwing waves of people at the enemy is something the Europeans did in ww1. A battle were napoleon lost 20,000 soldiers would cripple his army of morale and he would be trying to retreat. In ww1 one battle could leave 50,000 dead with more divisions being ready to be feed into the machine.

[@sholem_bond]

Not to get too serious or critical, but I don't know why we start out by assuming that Louis's father (Napoleon the 3rd's father; idk, the Bastard's father) knows his son is bad news and thus is highly critical of this literal child who grows up in exile with parents who fight all the time, rather than like... Maybe growing up this way, with a distant and overly critical father, is what fucks Louis/Napoleon the 3rd up? (Like it's cool that you decided to become a peacenik, dude, but the most socially proactive thing you could probably do is to actually parent your fucking kid? Think globally, act locally, etc. Maybe a more securely-attached kid with better self-esteem wouldn't feel a need to reconquer France/take over the world?)

[@sholem_bond]

Like, I know it was the 19th century, but still, NapoleonDad: can you just write a book, or journal about it, or something, instead of making every insight you have about the futility of war into another lecture toward your child, who's already growing up with a feeling of powerlessness and a name to live up to (and thus a predisposition toward doing violence), please? You think you're helping because what you're saying is true and right, but you're not helping. I have known parents like this, who can make literally anything sound like a pretext for some criticism or new chore their usually-struggling kid has to get done. This is how you lose your kid to [internet] radicalization; they can never please you and never get validation from you, so eventually they give up and tune you out, while they seek it from worse sources instead. Anyway I'm sure I'll regret giving kid!Napoleon III the benefit of the doubt after Part 2, but much like NapoleonDad, I think I'm right and I had to say it.

[@kyleseagle7092]

This is the acid episode

[@ricksimon9867]

Ok I will be that guy: SKIP TO 38:00 Don't get me wrong, the first half hour is super entertaining, but it has literally NOTHING to do with Napoleon III.

[@vcg7790]

26:34 Xerxes; Cyrus never tried to invade Greece

[@JuliusSiezure]

exactly

[@JuliusSiezure]

@Wendy_O._Koopa

[@patrickryan7829]

As a Michigangander... Get bent it's our water.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Only till the nukes hit :)

[@christophereichten9005]

@@williamchamberlain2263be quiet you ghoul

[@JuliusSiezure]

snowflakes

[@Genericthegreat]

Sounds like a you problem

[@christophereichten9005]

Minnesotan here. Try you East Coast wuessies.

[@michael_mcgowan]

Robert claims to be from Texas

[@robpeterslaypaul]

@@michael_mcgowan and lives in Portland, and constantly shit talks the East Coast. Let's keep this clear.

[@michael_mcgowan]

@@robpeterslaypaul Are you saying Portland is not on the East Coast?

[@robpeterslaypaul]

@@michael_mcgowan When it's in Oregon, yes. When it's in Maine, no. But since he once said that DC was the "farthest away you could be on the continent" from where he was, I'm pretty sure about Oregon. I don't need to be chromed out to be on that eidetic shit.

[@pssurvivor]

the more confusing thing was robert pronouncing louis with an s at the end god that really grinded my gears

[@wesshiflet2214]

it’s reparations for all the times people have mispronounced St. Louis

[@sholem_bond]

It's got an S in it. Every French word has too many letters, they're almost all vowels, and they're pronounced as basically different versions of "eh" or "ugh"

[@theswampangel3635]

Too silly to waste time over.

[@wesshiflet2214]

wat

[@hshh2453]

Matt Lieb is not funny and never shuts up!!!! Dude, you are the worst

[@MrGksarathy]

Louis Napoleon was the King of Holland, not Denmark. Denmark was still ruled by the House of Oldenburg. Speaking of that region, though, one of Napoleon's marshalls did become King of Sweden and turned on Napoleon later on.

[@godlessrecovery8880]

Ha. Benadryl... I did lethal doses of that too many damn times in HS... That and robitussin... bottles and bottles of robitussin... I can't believe my liver survived...

[@Wendy_O._Koopa]

Weird... KZbin told me I had a "reply" to something on this video... but I didn't say anything here?

[@daymanfighterofthenightman]

Wendy is the best Koopaling 🤘

[@Wendy_O._Koopa]

​@@daymanfighterofthenightman Thank you, random citizen!

[@skug9bob]

Davy Crockett bomb was _tiny_ by nuke standards: it had a yield of only about 20 tons of TNT. If you had a shallow trench to drop into or a hilltop to duck behind or even a big rock, you'd be safe enough from the two-kilometers-away blast. (Probably don't want to be downwind and filling your lungs with air and dust, tho')

[@corvuscallosum5079]

How much time would you have after firing to shelter yourself?

[@skug9bob]

@@corvuscallosum5079 I vaguely recall (and don't quote me on this) that an average artillery shell takes 20-30 seconds to reach its target, so you probably don't want to be more than 200-300 feet away from shelter, presuming booking it immediately after the firing at around 10 miles per hour.

[@padmelotus]

Re: the Bonapartes becoming one of the great families of Europe equal to the Windsors. Technically, the Windsors didn’t exist by that name until 1917. They only adopted the name of Windsor about 100 years ago and were previously the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.