I've been really surprised to learn recently that Napoleon had committed many war crimes and made ethically dubious decisions to the point of betraying (abandoning to certain death) one of his best generals. Could you please elaborate on that topic and/or point me to some sources about Napoleon's misdeeds?
A bit of a backstory: Some time ago there was a Reddit thread along the lines of "Who was literally worse than Hitler?". I was really surprised to find out that there was a number of people pointing to Napoleon Bonaparte as a prime example of such a morally dubious ruler. They even provided some details and sources for that claim.
I shared this surprising fact with students I teach English which in turn spurred their interest, especially that of one half-French girl who asked me to point her to the original discussion to learn more. Unfortunately (of course) I was unable to find that thread, and so I am in a bit of a pickle.
We talked about how every nation needs a hero that is mythologized and revered with his/her dark side purposefully hidden. In case of Poland it was Józef Piłsudski and in France that seemed to be Napoleon. The girl said she'd never learned any negative facts about Napoleon and is eager to know more. So I don't want to let her down in the topic I think might be really important to her.
Thanks in advance for any and all help in that matter!
First of all it's important to define what exactly one means by "war crimes", since there was no such conception in the late-18th and early-19th century. The first basic Geneva Conventions were not established until 1864, and were only intended to deal with the sick and wounded. If we were to judge every military general before the 20th century by our current moral and legal standards, then literally no general would meet them. Secondly, what specific examples of "war crimes" are you and they referring to? Who is this general he "betrayed" and "abandoned to certain death"?
The most egregious example of what could arguably be called a war crime was the massacre of the Turkish PoWs at Jaffa in 1799, although with this situation it's important to take into consideration the context; these same soldiers had previously been captured by the French after an earlier battle, and Napoleon took the unexpectedly merciful and generous step of releasing them under oath that they not take up arms against the French again in the current war. They betrayed this oath by rejoining the army and firing on French soldiers at Jaffa, which infuriated not just Napoleon but the entire French army. By the standards of the time this was an acceptable justification for having them executed.
The Mamluks and Ottomans were also no strangers to atrocious war crimes, and theirs far surpassed what the French did; there are accounts of French stragglers that could not keep up with the main army being captured, raped and murdered by Mamluk cavalry, and any French soldiers that were caught by the Ottomans as they advanced through Palestine were brutally tortured to death (this was the reason why Napoleon had some of his sick poisoned to death, to avoid this fate). It was a brutal and savage theatre of war with no mercy shown to the other side by both armies. This was not the 'civilised' war of Western and Central Europe, and both sides knew it.
Napoleon's troops regularly committed atrocities in occupied regions, most notably in Spain and Russia (these places and people were not seen as being 'equal' to the French like the Germans, Austrians and Italians were), although with a few exceptions there is no evidence of Napoleon directly ordering any of these atrocities to occur (the notable exception being the execution of a group of "rebels" in Madrid). French troops could be highly disciplined and professional while fighting in some theatres such as Germany (the 1809 war against Austria was a very "clean" war, for example) and also barbaric and ruthless in others (such as Spain and Russia), although the latter usually only occurred when they faced significant guerrilla attacks from the local populace. In Italy there was widespread looting, mostly of artworks, but not as many atrocities against the people as in later campaigns. There are accounts of Napoleon having French soldiers that raped Italian women be executed in front of the rest of the army to set an example.
But to provide a more detailed rebuttal I'll have to see what examples of war crimes you're specifically referring to.