Hudu?? Future Warrior Service Number
The Spartans, because of their warriorry and belligerence, have long been regarded as symbols of warriors. However, because the Spartans pursued militarism and attached only importance to military physical education and not to humanistic general education, they could not last and were conquered by Alexander's Macedonian Empire soon after the victory over Athens.
So what happened if the Spartans fell in love with reading? Let's take a look at a Spartan who loved to read, Napoleon.
In 1768, before belonging to France, Corsica was ruled by Genoese, whose brutality and corruption caused the Corsicans to generally advocate rebellion and vendetta. In 1769, before Napoleon was born, his pregnant mother took him all over Corsica in the footsteps of resistance to the French invasion.
Napoleon's mother was extremely strict with the education of her children and did not hesitate to carry out corporal punishment when necessary, so the unique character of the Corsicans who were tough and independent penetrated deep into napoleon's marrow. Although Napoleon's father was cowardly, his declining aristocratic status still gave his brothers and sisters the privilege of attending aristocratic schools for free, with his brother Joseph entering the seminary and Napoleon entering the Briena Officers School.
Napoleon was only 10 years old when he first entered the military academy, he did not speak French, he was short, his clothes did not fit well, he did not have pocket money, and he was like a half-savage in the eyes of his classmates. Because he was shy, taciturn, solitary, and rebellious, the teachers thought "the boy was made of granite and buried in a volcano." He also hated the little nobles, couldn't stand their sneers, and often had to duel them like an avenger. So his classmates gave him the nickname, Spartan.
Napoleon did admire the Spartan city-state, believing that "Sparta is our model, and bravery and strength are great virtues".
He admired heroes, fascinated by the Greek and Roman heroes in Plutarch's novels, and believed that "only cannons can turn imagination into reality." So, he chose artillerymen that no one else liked.
He fought bravely and often charged forward. During the Battle of Toulon, his mount was shot and fell, and his calf was stabbed in the belly with a spear. According to statistics, he was wounded or killed in a total of 18 mounts in the war.
He commented on his brother Joseph, "lacking the courage to face the dangers of the battlefield ... I like to say frivolous things and cope with social situations", but I can't be a good soldier.
He was very pragmatic and believed that conducting was a practical art. "There's nothing in the military industry that I can't accomplish. If no one is armed with gunpowder, I know how to do it; I will assemble the gun mounts, and I know how to build the cannons; or if someone has to teach the tactical details, I can also teach them. ”
Napoleon's achievements, however, could not have been achieved by the bravery of the Spartans alone. His inspiration for solving major military and political problems came first and foremost from education and books.
In 18th-century France, the children of the nobility received an elite education, and the first boy of the aristocratic family would later become a cleric and the second boy would become an officer, so that the interests of the nobility could be balanced between religious and secular rights.
The Military Academy Briena was an aristocratic elite school with courses in mathematics, Latin, history, French, German, geography, fortification, weapons, fencing, dance and music, which gave Napoleon a good education.
He was good at mathematics and once boasted, "Memory is my transcendence, and when I was a boy I remembered the logarithm of thirty or forty numbers." ”
During his time at the military academy, Napoleon eagerly studied a large number of celebrity biographies and military works. These include Brutac's Biography of Greco-Roman Celebrities, as well as the writings of Caesar, Cicero, Voltaire, Diderot, the Priests of Raynaal, Erasmus, Otropius, Livy, etc., as well as Nepos's Biography of the Great Commander. So, later he argued, the art of war could only be acquired through the accumulation of experience, the study of the history of war, and the participation of influential commanders-in-chief in battles. He once questioned, "Could it be that the poetry of the Iliad and the plays of Corneille were created by learning grammar?" "I am a soldier, and this is a gift from God. It is both innate and experienced. ”
In 1781, the transcripts of the second year of the military academy showed that education and reading had changed the external characteristics of Napoleon's Spartans, "of excellent physique, of gentleness, of gentleness, of being outspoken, and of being thoughtful." Most of the coursework is qualified, and the ability to apply mathematics has always been outstanding... This boy can be a good sailor. ”
He also studied the principles and history of artillery in depth, the laws of offensive battles, etc., especially the revolutionary book "General Theory of Tactics" by the French general Count Gibert, which exposed him to new military ideas. Napoleon strongly agreed with one of the principles in the book, believing that high morale, that is, the spirit of the army, could overcome most of the difficulties.
By the time he left the military academy, Napoleon already possessed the qualities of an officer with "self-respect, self-esteem, belligerence by nature, excellent organizational skills, and love of order and discipline", which laid a good foundation for him to make continuous breakthroughs on the battlefield in the future.
"History teaches morality and virtue to young people." The Breena Military Academy's brief reads. Napoleon not only liked celebrity biographies and military writings, but also dabbled in a wide range.
After graduating from military school at the age of 16, he became a second lieutenant officer, rented a small bookstore near the station, and his colleagues went out at night to have fun, some to the casino, some to find women, but Napoleon was not moved, but immersed in his own spiritual world, deeply studying Plato's ideal country, the Constitution of Persia, Athens and Sparta, the history of England, the finances of France, the country and customs of the Tatars and Turks, the history of Egypt and Carthage, the overview of India, the British report on contemporary France, The history and crimes of the nobility, astronomy, geography and meteorology, the laws of reproduction, the statistics of mortality, and so on, even the most distant places on earth he gave a brief account.
In the course of extensive reading, Napoleon also drew Enlightenment ideas from Rousseau and Voltaire. Disgusted with the mob, supporting the revolution, and hoping for a new social order based on logic and reason, he shelled the mob in Corsica and Paris.
"We move forward step by step to find concise theories that can be used across the board in life." At his instigation, France enacted a code of law that promoted human rights, abolished hereditary aristocracy, equality of inheritance for children, equality of religion, equality of marital relations, and so on, all of which contained revolutionary legal elements in the morally decisive parts. So, in any case, Napoleon was the son of the revolution, and the norms of napoleon's code are still the legislative basis of most European countries to this day.
Rousseau's famous book Emile
Genius is no accident. Napoleon knew that there were only two forces in the world: wisdom and sword. Napoleon trusted the power of wisdom more than the sword. Because Rousseau affirmed the Resistance movement in Corsica, Napoleon regarded it as an idol and used his actions to illustrate Rousseau's educational philosophy of a barbarian living in the city.
The young Napoleon is a realistic version of Emile!