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Hello on the morning of the Battle of Waterloo in Napoleon told his lawyer left tenants

I tell you that Wellington is a bad general that the English are bad troops and

Cesare la Faire d'Indesurne in other words this my friends will be a picnic

Some of those left tenants disagreed especially those who unlike Napoleon had fought against Wellington

But didn't Napoleon really have such little respect for the man who would be his nemesis or when he dismissed the iron duke

So lightly what he's just trying to raise morale

There are some curious parallels between the two arrivals. They were born in the same year

1769 both were given career lifts by their brothers and nepotism no sweat

Both read the works of Caesar and chose Hannibal as their personal hero

Both enjoyed the pleasures of two of the same mistresses and they even ate the food of the same personal chef

Though Wellington bested Napoleon the only time they ever met

Which was on the field of Waterloo in 1815 who was the greater general who left the larger legacy and ultimately who won

With me to discuss the comparative histories of two of the Titans of 19th century history is

Andrew Roberts author of a dashing new book Napoleon and Wellington also with us is the Napoleon

Expressionist Mike Brewers of Aberdeen University and the Wellingtonian

Belinda Beaton from the Department of History about at Oxford University Andrew Roberts

Napoleon was famously from the island of Corsica and took up the cause of Corsican independence and then switched to take up the cause of French Revolutionary independence

Can you tell us briskly how from one to the other he became at the age of

26 the commander of the Italian army this rocket rise. It wasn't astonishing the meteoric career

Yes, by the time he was

...