Why was Napoleon exiled and not executed?

 

by the time Napoleon was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he had been a massive thorn in Europe’s side for well over a decade.

But despite his conquests and the wars, executing a former head of state, especially one as iconic as Napoleon, was a bit of a sticky wicket.

European leaders were worried about turning him into a martyr, which could stir up more trouble than keeping him alive.

Also, Napoleon was a master of public image and had a certain charm that left many leaders preferring not to outright kill him.

They thought exile would be a less brutal solution that could still neutralize him as a threat.

There was also a legal and royal decorum aspect here—executing a dethroned emperor wasn't exactly common practice and didn’t sit well with the 19th-century notions of royalty and nobility.

It wasn’t really cricket, as the British might say.

His first exile to Elba (yes, he got exiled twice, because once just wasn’t enough for our ambitious Corsican!) was kind of a soft deal.

They basically made him the sovereign of the island, which is like grounding a kid by sending him to his room where he’s got all his toys.

Not surprisingly, he got bored and escaped less than a year later, kicking off the Hundred Days that led to Waterloo.

Post-Waterloo, the Allied powers weren't taking any chances.

They sent him off to Saint Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic. This place was about as isolated as you could get—it was the 19th-century equivalent of being banned to the moon.

Here, he was closely watched until he died in 1821, presumably from stomach cancer, though the rumor mill about poisoning never stops turning.

Another cool angle? The British were primarily responsible for his custody, and they had both the naval might to enforce the exile and the political stability to resist calls for his execution.

They figured keeping him alive but impotent on a rock in the middle of nowhere was the best balance between eliminating a political threat and avoiding creating a Napoleonic legend that might inspire future upheavals.