Quotable quotes
War is corruption and disgrace

"A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him"
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British historian, statesman and biographer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He served in various governmental posts and was appointed lord of the admiralty in 1911.

"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third U.S. president and an author of the Declaration of Independence. He served two distinguished terms as president. In 1808, he retired and continued pursuing his widely diverse interests in science, natural history, philosophy, and the classics.

"War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it."
 Desiderius Erasmus (1533-1603), Dutch philosopher and humanist. He was the illegitimate son of Roger Gerard. He never used his father's name and called himself Desiderius, meaning "the desired one" in Latin. He studied and taught in Paris, and, later, in most of the cultural centres in Europe, including Oxford and Cambridge.

"Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace."
James Thomson(1854-1900), Scottish poet. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. He published poetry there, but left university early and made his way to London.


5 May 1821

Napoleon dies in exile

Courtesy of Palph Boerke's Collection of Art
Napoleon at War.



Napoleon Bonaparte was a weighty figure in world history. He was the French ruler in the 19th century who once established an empire that stretched across Europe. In 1821, he died in exile on the island of Saint Helena.

Napoleon, one of the greatest military militarists in history, rapidly gained his power during the French Revolution in the late 1790s.

By 1799, France was fighting with many European nations.

Once, the French government was on the verge of collapse and Napoleon returned to France from the Egyptian front line to save the country from disintegration.

He then established a new government and made himself first consul in February 1800.

Reorganization of French armies followed and quickly proved successful by defeating Austria.
In 1802, he introduced France to a new legal system, the Napoleonic Code, which was later widely adopted by other European nations.

By 1804, his aggressive moves towards dictatorship were turned into action by turning the central government into an imperial dictatorship. He was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral.

By 1807, Napoleon expanded the map of French from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.

Starting from 1812, Napoleon began to encounter significant military defeats.

It started from a disastrous defeat during the invasion of Russia. After that, he lost Spain to Britain in the Peninsula War and endured total defeat against an allied force by 1814.

Although he was exiled to the island of Elba, he managed to escape to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army.

At first, he enjoyed temporary success. However, he at last experienced a fatal defeat at Waterloo against an allied force on 18 June 1815.

Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa.

He died six years later in 1821. His body returned to France and interred in Paris.