The Changing State of Empire Construction

With the rise of the Napoleonic Empire of France in Europe during the early 1800's Parsons describes that the way that leaders go about constructing Empires has changed as a result of Napoleon. The most important notion here is that people are more resistant to empires.

Parsons states, "This model lost its viability when common people came to see empires as foreign and thus illegitimate." (Pg. 235) The model that he is talking about here is when Empires win a serries battle and thus create an empire, sometimes not even traveling to these new lands or engaging with the population that they have just conquered. This can be seen in Rome, during the Punic Wars, the Romans had major defeats at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae, and yet they won the war and constructed an empire because they won the battle of Zama, as well as some other battles. They did not occupy the populate, or commit a full fledged invasion of the Carthaginian state, but instead won a series battle and came to an agreement with the losing nation as to exchange of lands. The people in turn would have accepted the transition and life continues as normal.

With Napoleon things become different. He was not going to conquer European countries by winning a battle and then having the people and government give lands over to him as the victor. No he was going to have to invade the country and occupy everything in order for him to force them to follow him. Instead of people submitting to Napoleon Parson states "Napoleon's attempt to rule local communities directly sparked a powerful and popular anti-French backlash throughout the continent. This resistance was not yet national, for most Europeans at this time still identified themselves on the basis of local or communal loyalties. Nevertheless, the common experience of resisting the invasive French Empire helped build larger identities that were the raw material of European Nationalism." (Pg. 234) The people of Europe resisted the invasion of France because they saw it as illegitimate and oppressive, as a result of this Napoleon had to change the scope of how empires are constructed, he had to occupy the entire state and population to force them to be part of his empire, a vast contrast from past empires. Is this true? Did Napoleon change the growth of Empires, forcing them to be more invasive and controlling of the population, as a result of the peoples new-found distaste for empire and national identity?