Can there be a moral to an immoral tale?
Can a despot call a deskettle black?
In the case of Male Chauvinists can we say that they display
Sexitivity instead of Sensitivity?
If the Joker was Batman's nemesis, can we call ours "The Trumper"?
The Catholic Church has the Pope, do we have the Dope?
And, is God simply a dyslexic dog?
Carl Jarvis
On 7/22/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It is dangerous to get bogged down in Moscow. (photo: Lyne Lucien/The Daily
Beast)
Top 4 Lessons Trump Can Learn From Napoleon in Russia
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
22 July 17
Trump’s New York Times interview can only be understood, to the extent
that it can be understood, as the ramblings of someone suffering from
delusions of grandeur. It is rambling, full of non sequiturs, and of
bizarre
allegations.
Trump said that he regretted appointing Jeff Sessions attorney general,
since Sessions went on to recuse himself from the investigation of Russia’s
meddling in the 2016 election (what with Sessions repeatedly meeting with
the Russians and all). Sessions stepping aside that way led the assistant
AG
to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s Russia ties. Trump
warned the prosecutor, Robert Muller, not to look into his business
affairs.
But gee if you were investigating Trump’s Russia connection, his business
ties would be high on a prosecutor’s list. Don Jr., who has a big mouth,
let
it be known on the golf course once that the Trumps routinely borrowed
large
sums from Russian banks.
Trump says that he had told French President Emmanuel Macron that Napoleon
Bonaparte had been a failure, but that Macron demurred, saying he designed
modern Paris. Actually that was Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann who designed
modern Paris, at the order of Emperor Napoleon III, and one suspects that
Macron must have gotten mixed up about his Napoleons (assuming Trump
reported Macron correctly, which cannot be assumed).
Then Trump observed that Napoleon had not ended up so badly (he was exiled
to a very remote island after losing at Waterloo to the British).
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had
extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has
Russia been saved by the weather [garbled]?”
Napoleon’s Jeff Sessions was Charles Talleyrand. Talleyrand thought it was
wiser to consolidate French conquests and to make peace with, e.g., Austria
than to go on dangerously extending the imperial army. He was against
Napoleon’s plan to invade Russia and had to step down in 1807. He later
conspired against Napoleon, and played a role in the peace settlement when
Napoleon was overthrown, leading to his exile.
Actually I wrote a book about one of Bonaparte’s invasions (of Egypt, not
of Russia).
(photo: Juan Cole)
I can attest that Bonaparte had an affair(probably what Trump meant by
extracurricular activities) while in Cairo, with the wife of a junior
officer, something that embarrassed his stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais, who
was forced to ride behind the adulterous carriage. Eugene was being overly
sensitive, since his mother Josephine usually had at least a couple of
affairs going on, herself.
Perhaps Trump is projecting on Napoleon his own extracurricular activities
in Moscow, though I couldn’t tell you if Napoleon liked golden showers. I
doubt it, since the biographers say he was sensitive to smells and was
attracted to women who smelled good to him.
However, I can assure Mr. Trump that Bonaparte would never have let some
mere p-grabbing interfere with his duties as a leader on the battlefield
and
that he did go to Moscow and wasn’t delayed in Paris by a dalliance. Unlike
some people, he wouldn’t have had time to go off to a hotel with some
ladies
of the night while he was supposed to be staging a major operation.
Trump is right that Napoleon’s army was in part defeated by the Moscow
winter. Note though that winters were colder and harsher then since that
was
before human beings spewed so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that
they changed the climate.
In fact this is Charles Joseph Minard’s famous attempt to visualize the
Russia campaign. The broad brown lines are the troops that wen to Russia
and
the thin black ones are those that came back. Temperature is plotted at the
bottom.
So to sum up, what can Trump learn from Napoleon, really?
It is dangerous to get bogged down in Moscow.
It is especially dangerous to get bogged down in Moscow with escorts.
You might lead a lot of people on a campaign but if it crashes and burns
you
might not be able to lead a lot of people after that.
If you dismiss a powerful official, it can come back to bite you in the
ass.
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