Why We'd Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo

An article I found when doing some research on meddling on the Napoleonic Wars.

Why We'd Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Roberts Hundreds of thousands of historians have pored over the questions of why he attacked when, where and how he attacked. Yet 200 years after the fact, a different question must be asked: Why was the Battle of Waterloo even fought? Was it really necessary to secure the peace and security of Europe?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Roberts The autocratic rulers of Russia, Prussia and Austria wanted to crush the revolutionary ideas for which Napoleon stood, including meritocracy, equality before the law, anti-feudalism and religious toleration. Essentially, they wanted to turn the clock back to a time when Europe was safe for aristocracy. At this they succeeded—until the outbreak of the Great War a century later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Roberts The British had long enjoyed most of the key Enlightenment values, having beheaded King Charles I 140 years before the French guillotined Louis XVI, but they had other reasons for wanting to destroy Napoleon. Anything that distracted the British public’s attention from Andrew Jackson’s victory at New Orleans in January 1815 was very welcome, not least because the British commander there, Gen. Edward Pakenham, was the Duke of Wellington’s brother-in-law. More gravely, Britain and France had fought each other for no fewer than 56 years in the preceding 125, and Napoleon himself had posed a threat of invasion before Lord Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805. With the French threat removed, the British were able to sign a peace treaty securing strategically important points around the globe, such as Cape Town, Jamaica and Sri Lanka, from which they could project their maritime power into a new empire to replace the one they’d lost in America. They, too, succeeded, building the largest empire in world history, which by the dawn of the 20th century covered nearly a quarter of the world’s land surface. The British could have achieved those goals even if they’d left Napoleon alone; they had total control of the oceans.

Comments?