So do we condemn the French merely because of the accident that most of their campaigns were fought on un-friendly territory ? This amounts to French = aggressor = bad and Allies = victims = good. But the Allies declared war on France quite avidly. Or, to put it another way, do we say that the French should not have operated on un-friendly territory for fear of doing harm to the locals, and instead should have passively defended their borders and nothing more ?
Indeed, should Moore have surrendered rather than risk his men pillaging their way back to the coast ?
And if we say "yes" to these querries, are we being grossly unreasonable in what we expect of governments and military leaders ? Would such concerns be applicable even today ?
"that went into foreign territories as 'liberators' left them with wagons of loot"
Please provide actual evidence of these many wagons of "loot" under the Empire. Not reparations. Not levies in kind. Not tax assessments. "Loot". We see this "loot" all the time being mentioned. Is it anything more than prejudice and bias and propaganda ? Or a few individual thieves, as can happen in any army at any time ?
"Orders from on high to repress dissent with violence"
Was political dissent not universally met with repression, usually violent, in this era ? Can we have contemporary examples where civil disobedience was met with anything other violence ?