Napoleon was unusually short
The old claim turned out to be wrong and was rejected by evidence.
TaughtNapoleon Bonaparte stood about five feet two, and his aggression compensated for his height, which is why we call it a Napoleon complex.
NowHe was about 5 feet 7 inches, average or slightly above for a Frenchman of his era. The confusion comes from French inches, which were longer than English ones, plus relentless British wartime caricature.
What actually happened
The measurement recorded at his death on Saint Helena was 5 pieds 2 pouces. A pouce is not an inch. The French inch of the period was roughly 2.71 cm against the English 2.54 cm, so the figure converts to about 169 cm, or 5 feet 7 inches. Average height for French conscripts of the time was in the neighborhood of 164 to 165 cm.
The rest was propaganda. James Gillray and other British cartoonists spent years drawing "Little Boney" as a raging pygmy, and the image outlived the war. It was reinforced by his nickname le petit caporal, which was affectionate rather than dimensional, and by the fact that he was habitually surrounded by his Imperial Guard, who were selected for height.
The phrase "Napoleon complex" therefore rests on a unit conversion error and an enemy's cartoons. The correction has been in the reference literature for decades, but it is one of those facts that classrooms kept repeating because it was memorable.
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Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Was Napoleon Short?britannica.com
- Fondation Napoléon: The height of Napoleonnapoleon.org
Who was taught this
Still standard through 2005, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 1998 learned the earlier version.