I think he actually wanted to go to Constantinople before he he got the unexpected chance to defeat the 13 Vendémiaire coup attempt with a whiff of grapeshot.
Who knows, if he's lucky enough and manages to impress Selim III he might even become the Grand Vizier...
Could we have Charles Dumouriez become dictator of France instead of Napoleon? Let's say he defeats the Coalition at the Battle of Neerwinden, so he doesn't have to defect in order to keep his life. Eventually, he seizes power in a coup.
That is why propose have 13 happened next month, he is already on a ship or in Constantinople, no chance to comeback so easily
Kill Lucien Bonaparte before his influence can give his brother high military command. Kill Sieyes before he masterminds the coup Napoleon ran away with. Or, the squishy liberal way, get the Jacobins to cool down so they don't threaten to kill Napoleon's brother (or can't be plausibly accused thereof) so there's no life or death reason (or plausible excuse) to seize power to whack them first.
Napoleon lose a eye in a freak accident in 1776, as such he doesn’t enter the army.
This is rather easy just have the french revolution go a different way. Have it become a constitutional monarchy during the early days of the 'revolution' and you won't see Napoleon become the leader of France.
Well, with a POD in the year 1776 you have Napoleon at the age of 6 living on Corsica. The biggest influence on his life at the time was his mother who instilled a firm discipline in him which served him well in his military career later in life. When she was pregnant with him, his mother was fighting alongside his father for Corsican independence against the invading French. It would be quite easy for her to be injured during this which either leads to her being less healthy a few years later and her exert less of an influence on him. With a less disciplined character and attitude, when he goes to France for continued education at the age of 9 he does less well in school and doesn't earn high enough marks to get a scholarship to the École Militaire and with only some religious schooling falls more under the sphere of his uncle, the Cardinal Joseph Fesch, perhaps leading Napoleon become a priest.
Napoleon descended a staircase too fast, stumbled and smashed his skull against a wall. 🤪
He lost most of his intellectual capacity and ended up in a Hospice. 🤪
Edit:
He lost most of his intellectual capacity and ended up in a Hospice. 🤪
Edit:
He's not in a coma, he's handicapped, so it counts! 😛
Last edited:
unprincipled peter
Donor
1776 leaves a lot of roads not taken by Nap and by many, many, others. It is simple to change his path and put him somewhere else. an illness or injury causes a missed appointment. a benefactor chooses someone else (doesn't even have to be Nap directly - could be someone who helps his father, changing the family fortunes, or who affects someone who then is a butterfly flap in the career of Nap), he's posted somewhere where his commander hates him and buries his career, etc.