World Shaker

Gabcikova, Slovakia is not a well known town in the annals of history. But under communist rule, the government built a massive dike and dam for power production just outside of this little village. We rode that dike for seemingly endless miles in the hot sun today. Here we sit on a warm Slovak evening drinking beer and soaking up the atmosphere. "A picture is worth a thousand words."

The morning was spent in Bratislava, Capitol of the country. I spent most of the time looking for cannonballs embedded in the walls, evidence of Napoleon Bonaparte's bombardment of the city in 1809. "History is written by the winners." Around the time of the bombardment, other more familiar events were taking place. George Washington died in 1799, Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, and Lewis and Clark started out in 1803.

So I got to thinking. The man was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica, and quickly rose up the ranks of the French army. As a general, he was a military genius, eventually becoming emperor of a vast empire. He led a full life in between battles, with multiple wives but only one son. After trying to add Russia to his territory, his army was  weakened to the point that he lost at Waterloo to the Duke of Wellington in 1815. "Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest."

Exiled to elba, he escaped after a few years, only to be exiled once more, for good this time to St. Helena, an island in one of the most isolated places on earth in the middle of the south Atlantic. "Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide." He is credited with introducing the metric system into Europe as well as the civil code of justice we use today. 

And showing what a wise man he was, sometime before he died in 1821 of stomach cancer he also said, "A woman laughing is a woman conquered." All of the quotes above came from him, but I think the one that says the most follows:

"The soldier, I realized,  must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved by battles which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred by tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.

Napoleon, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. He was haunted by this scene until his own death.