The Bonaparte Influence...

Some days ago I finished reading the biography of The Napoleon Bonaparte.
Certainly it left a profound impact on my mind... a nice example of how a man can challenge his destiny... from a simple soldier to becoming an emperor...
It also highlighted how important it is to choose right people for right task...

When I combine this newly acquired knowledge of European history with the little knowledge of Indian history I already have, it puts up a nice overall picture of how the events in Indian subcontinent and in the Europe were interlinked...

At one end we see the looting of India by the British in beginning of the 19th century... the days when Maratha and mogul empires surrendered... and at the other end we see the British facing the economic as well as military blockade throughout the Europe by their sworn enemy.... Napoleon Bonaparte. We easily understand the desperation of the British Empire to consolidate its rule in India.

It was also interesting to know that when a soldier... Napoleon once wanted to join the army of the "Tipu Sahib" and fight against the British...

Some days ago I was reading "The Story of My Experiments with truth" I came across one remark by Gandhiji that French was Lingua Franca for Europe... and I could clearly see the reasons behind that.... certainly the French occupation of Europe had left it's footprints.

Another interesting thing was to observe that all these colonial powers... That is England.. France... Spain.. Portugal... Holland etc had strange relationships... that is while outside Europe they were fighting with each other for occupying colonies...in the Europe they had entirely different relationships... except England all other were under the French rule for some time... and England was actually fighting on their side against France...

Again the fall of napoleon… result of a disastrous Russian campaign where “General Winter” defeated him… they say that when people don’t learn from history…. History teaches them by repeating itself…. What a better example than Adolf Hitler who later met similar fate through a similar disaster campaign in Russia…

It really feels good when you realize the small meanings behind the incidents...