Sunday, January 11, 2009
Comparing France and Spain to Napoleon in respect to Universal Monarchy
The monarchs of France and Spain focused too much on simply uniting people for the sake of uniting them. Napoleon seperated himself from the average monarch by having one of the most successful military careers of all time. If your nation is able to march an army across Europe then the people will be proud of that and proud to be a French person. This feeling of nationalism was what was missing from previous attempts of universal monarchy.
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6 comments:
I agree Alex. One of the coolest results of the French Revolution was a nationaly conscious French population. Perhaps, in any large scale revolution that is always a result.
Why weren't the monarchs of Spain or earlier France able to inspire that nationalism in their own people? its hard to imagine a people obeying a king or fighting in those vast armies unless they felt some form of patriotism. i feel like nationalism must have existed earlier. The Romans, maybe? Strength and Honor.
I'm sure there were plenty of good reasons to fight in an army other than nationalism. Even today it is not ALL about serving your country. The biggest one was money. In fact, the word "soldier" means one who is being paid to fight. Remember King Louis XIV. One of the most impressive things he did was to command a national army. This was the first time this had been done in France. Prior to Louis XIV, and still in many other countries, it had been a bunch of paid private groups under the command of a prince or other noble. The national army is a relatively new idea which came with the rising of the New Monarchies.
I think that Cote has an excellent point. Nationalism has existed in different forms for as long as humans figured out that there is strength when we work together. Humans want protection and are naturally somewhat loyal to those that protect them. Cote's point about paid national armies illustrates why nationalism was so important here.
i feel that the monarchies in france and spain were really out to get power, with napolean, aside from his military careers through europe, he truly wanted a united and powerfl france. he thoght he caed for the people and their wishes...
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