Waterloo and all that

There will be much triumphalism today, the anniversary of Waterloo, and in the days to come. Of course the French have a very different perspective on these events and quite understandably so. Napoleon may have made an attempt to conquer the continent and, in the process, put members of his family on the thrones of Europe, but they will see this as little different to Britain conquering its Empire and placing members of her aristocracy in charge. Furthermore they see Napoleon as a progressive leader, seeking to spread the ideals of the revolution to countries which were decidedly backward in terms of democratic development, albeit by force of armies. The reason why Britain resented this so much was because we were already on our own road to modern democracy without the need for revolutions or conquest. In other words Napoleon was seeking to do to Europe by force what we were managing to do relatively peacefully at home, so he had to be stopped. There is a modern parallel, of course, which is the attempt by the USA, Britain and their allies to imprint their own concept of democratic rule in the Middle East. Like Napoleon's project this has become corrupted because we (Britain, the USA and others) have attempted to impose our own puppet leaders on such countries, with disastrous results. Incidentally, Wellington received £700,000 for his victory, a sort of gigantic banker’s bonus. It was an enormous sum by 1815 standards, and at a time when the country was in so much war debt it had to invent a new tax – income tax - to pay off the deficit. Sound familiar?