Nationalism Conception vs Contribution
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British Imagist poet Richard Arlington once proclaimed Nationalism as "a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill". I believe that comment was directed at, but not limited to, one Napoleon Bonaparte, whose legendary reign as the arrogant emperor of France into the early 19th century saw both the impressive ascension and equally rapid decline of one of history's most brilliant and self-destructive sovereigns. His British counterpart, Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson, whose humanity rivalled his military tactical intelligence as his greatest strength, became much more than Napoleon's counterpart, as his adversarial foe in battle while also his competitor for nationalistic supremacy. However, in determining the more lasting of a legacy left behind, this is a case where facts alone do not speak for themselves. While Nelson recorded sound victories over Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), it was the former who took away something more for his country, creating a Republic which well outlived him, and who provided the lasting nationalistic and administrative framework for France, which continued even after he himself had been ousted by the restored Bourbon monarchy. It was Napoleon who came the closest to making "the political and national unitcongruent" , and who himself cultivated a finite French national identity to be the extension of the ideals of the bourgeoisie-driven French Revolution, celebrating and employing to an extreme the imperialistic aspect of this identity. Where Nelson garnered much merited acclaim for his immediate acquisition of material substance (naval defeats of the French as well as the titles and medals he so badly coveted), Bonaparte obtained the more lasting and epically proportioned reward: a political and social legacy which he himself originated and implemented. In retrospect, both Admiral Nelson and Napoleon immensely contributed to their respective countries' growing nationalistic attitude. Nelson was a great and key asset to as well as a representation of- Great Britain's development of a materially-driven nationalism that politically exploited the concept of "Admirals as Heroes". Napoleon however, took control of his own destiny and instead of being taken advantage of, took advantage of his own military achievements to himself foster a new and hugely popular nationalism based on the fulfilment of the social ambitions the French Revolution had sought to accomplish...