Wikimedia CommonsĪs is now tradition with leaders who take their countries to war with Britain, Napoleon spent years as a favourite punching bag for English caricaturists.Ī particularly scatological cartoon from 1798, for instance, showed Napoleon standing pantsless on the French coast and farting out a storm of balloons and guillotines aimed at the English.īut the “tiny Napoleon” trope did not start until 1803, according to Tim Clayton, a British expert on Napoleonic-era propaganda. It was that year that saw the publication of a famed cartoon known as “Maniac ravings or Little Boney in a strong fit.” Nevertheless, this doesn’t explain why British cartoons from the latter years of the Napoleonic Wars have a persistent theme of the Frenchman being ridiculously small.
The standard explanation for Napoleon’s mistaken shortness is that French inches of the era were slightly longer than those in England, so his reported height of 5’2” was mistranslated.
