Napoleon On How To Handle An Invasion

An excerpt from, “Napoleon On War” Edited By Bruno Colson, Translated By Gregory Elliott, Oxford University Press, 2015, Pg. 335 – 337:

In a famous passage, Clausewitz notes that the conqueror is always a friend of peace, as Napoleon himself said, and always wants to enter the state he is invading without encountering any opposition.

It is true that Napoleon often recommended conciliating invaded peoples. To General Joubert, who had entered Trento and was soon to march on the Tyrol, the commander-in-chief of the army of Italy wrote in late 1797:

Neglect nothing to please the inhabitants of the regions you conquer. You should not look to wretched inhabitants of mountains for money or resources; you should seek only to win their approval, so that they are more content with us than with the Austrians.

On the eve of landing in Egypt, a proclamation was addressed to French soldiers and warned them:

The peoples with whom we are going to live are Muhammadans; their first article of faith is this: ‘There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.’

Do not contradict them; behave with them as we behaved with the Jews and the Italians; have consideration for their muftis and their imams, just as you had for the rabbis and bishops.

For the ceremonies prescribed by the Koran, for mosques, have the same tolerance you had for convents and synagogues, for the religion of Moses and Jesus Christ.

The Roman legions protected all religions. Here you will encounter customs that are different from those of Europe; you must become accustomed to them.

. . .The commander-in-chief of an army of invasion had an interest in behaving in a way that respected local morals and customs. Napoleon tried to get his brother Jerome, who was leading a life of pleasure in his kingdom of Westphalia in 1809, to understand this:

Adopt manners and habits in conformity with those of the country you govern. That is how you will win over the inhabitants by esteem, which only ever goes with the opinion of customs and simplicity.