Today’s topic is going to be short — Napoleon short. A couple of the people I play golf with are short — not extremely short, just shorter than the others that I play golf with. But nonetheless, they have to put with the “short jokes.” And a number of times in the past, we’ve had discussions about the “Napoleon Complex.” So I thought today might be a good day to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon was one of the most successful and brutal military leaders of all time — he was known to have a short fuse and was often shortsighted, but he wasn’t, as popularity believed, especially short in stature. His supposedly small stature and fiery temper inspired the term Napoleon Complex, a belief that short men tend to compensate for their lack of height through domineering behavior and aggression. The Napoleon Complex, sometimes called Short Man Syndrome has come to describe all men who have an inferiority complex.
But was Napoleon really short?
The only known measurement of Bonaparte came from his autopsy, that reported a height of 5 feet, 2 inches. But hat measurement was calculated in French units. The French inch (pouce) of the time was 2.7 cm, while the imperial inch was shorter, at 2.54 cm. So by the English Imperial system, his height was actually 5 feet, 6 inches. I know, you are saying that that’s still pretty short, and that’s true by modern day standards — at least in some places in the world, like the United States. But in Napoleon’s time in France, the average height for an adult male was about 5 feet 5 inches (in modern international units.) Another possible reason for the misconception is the fact that Napoleon kept himself surrounded by a group of relatively tall guardsmen. He was never seen in public without his “imperial guard.” These soldiers averaged six feet in height and would have towered over Napoleon.
Well, that got me to wondering…. if Napoleon was about average height, where did the “legend” of his small stature come from? The image came mostly from the work of one man — British cartoonist James Gillray. Gillray’s caricatural depictions of the French general were extremely popular and influential. Gillray’s cartoon “Maniac-raving’s-or-Little Boney in a strong fit” was a satire of a genuine diplomatic incident which had occurred on March 14, 1803 at the Tuileries palace in Paris. In front of hundreds of European dignitaries, Napoleon vented his rage at Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador. This brutal and ungentlemanly attack terminated by Napoleon retiring to his apartments, leaving nearly two hundred spectators of his wanton display of arrogant impropriety in amazement and consternation. Gillray’s cartoon depicts a tiny Napoleon wearing boots that dwarf him, tearing his hair out in rage. He is surrounded by overturned furniture that is as big as he is, with speech bubbles depicting him filled with manic raging thoughts about Britain. The name “Little Boney” stuck and Gillray from that point on continually depicted the French Emperor as diminutive, raging and boastful — like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
After Gillray’s cartoons appeared, Napoleon sent a flurry of diplomatic notes across the English Channel demanding that the British government censor its press.
So in the end, Napoleon is primarily remembered for two things — being a master tactician and being short.
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