William Tyler
Napoleon: A Figure of Controversy
William Tyler | Napoleon: A Figure of Controversy | 07.26.21
- How are you, William? Good morning, everybody. Hi, William.
Hi. I’m fine.
How are you? Sound is very bad. So you know what, you’ll give it two minutes and then when you’re ready, start, please.
[William] Hi, Gwen!
We’re going to be doing, we’re going to be doing Napoleon. I just jumped out of my car so that I could say hello.
[Judy] Well, William. Sorry, I wanted to say, William, people are commenting on your tie already. Just so that you know.
[William] Oh.
[Gwen] I told you so.
[Wendy] Fabulous. Good.
101 Dalmatians.
[Wendy] Oh, wonderful.
My family have had Dalmatians. We’ve had Dalmatians in the past. Had them right back in the 19th century when they went to church behind the horse-drawn carriage as carriage dogs. My grandfather had them. Grandfather.
Wonderful. So it’s a commitment through the generations?
Yes, yes. I don’t have one now because I live in a flat and it isn’t fair and then we’re not allowed to anyhow so. But I miss them.
That’s wonderful. The animals, it’s wonderful to have animals.
It is, it is. It’s one of the things I miss.
So William, whenever you’re ready let’s, I’m going to hand over to you. Just say welcome to everybody, another wonderful week as we are trotting towards the summer holidays.
Thank you ever so much. So welcome, everyone, whatever time or place your listening in from and as Wendy said, we are changing people as it were. We’re looking this afternoon, as it is here in Britain, at Napoleon. In his book “The Age of Napoleon,” the great British Francophile Alistair Horn posed himself the question. “What dates are we talking about when we talk about the age of Napoleon?” And he considers that question at the very beginning of his book and he comes to this conclusion. “I decided to risk confining the age of Napoleon to the 25 years, a generation, which embraced both his zenith and his decline from 1795 when the young general received his first post with major political elbow power attached to it right through to 1820, a date by which his personality had been gone for five years, but when his influence was still strong under a shaky French restoration. And what a 25 years they were.”
And that’s very true. An extraordinary 25 years, not only in French history but in European history. But I don’t really agree that you can end the age of Napoleon in 1820 or Napoleon’s influence. I don’t think so because in this year of 2021, the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death, he’s become a most controversial figure on the current French political scene. The cause of the controversy is as it’s always been, the argument over Napoleon’s legacy, a good legacy, a bad legacy. There are those who think one thing and those who think another. Writing in “The Times” of London, their Paris correspondent Adam Sage wrote this in March of this year.
“The 1789 French Revolution is a relatively simple part of French secondary school history syllabuses. Pupils merely need to learn by heart the many benefits the revolution brought France. These include, according to the lesson my children attended, the fall of the absolute monarchy, the separation of powers, the abolition of slavery, the right to divorce, the opening of museums, the end of social hierarchy, the beginning of legal and fiscal equality, the implementation of new freedoms to express opinions, to meet and to work, and the facilitation of trade through a national system of weights and measures.”
He then goes on to say, “But if children thought when they came to the subject of Napoleon, it will be equally easy to mug up on the benefits of Napoleon as it had been to mug up the year before on the benefits of the French Revolution.” But he says, “This doesn’t work.” At this point history stopped being portrayed as black and white and becomes a struggle to make sense of nuances of grey. Was Napoleon good or bad? A figure to celebrate or to condemn? On the one hand, the pupils are taught, he grabbed power from the people, curtailed freedoms, rode back on women’s emancipation, forbade strikes and restored slavery.
On the other, he created the French legal system, the Elysees, and the Legion de Rue, which are still cornerstones in modern France. He established a single currency, the franc, and he abolished feudal rights and privileges in the countries he invaded.“ And that’s a very clever piece of writing because it tells you everything you need to know about the controversy around this extraordinary man, Napoleon Bonaparte. Was it good or was it bad? How good was it? How bad was it? In the France of 2021, Napoleon’s positive legacy has been emphasised by the political right and his negative legacy by the political left. And finally, Adam Sage writes this, "The lesson given to France’s 13 year old pupils at school, which aims to keep everyone happy, says this, ‘Napoleon enabled France to dominate Europe and to spread revolutionary principles, but encountered resistances abroad and brought in an authoritarian regime at home.’”
The French find it difficult historically to come to terms with Napoleon. And I suppose it’s perhaps inevitable that they do so. So let me begin as Alistair Horn began and advised in his piece that I read just at the beginning in the US 1795. 1795, Napoleon is 26 years of age. He was born in 1769, incidentally the same year as the Duke of Wellington, his nemesis of Waterloo was born. Born in 1769, just a Frenchman because Corsica had only just become French and not Italian. So he’s more Italian in many ways, his family are, than they are French. In what I think is the best modern one volume biography of Napoleon, which I put on the blog, on my blog, for you to look at is “Napoleon” by Adam Zamoyski.
And Zamoyski writes this, “His family,” in Corsica, “His Corsican family were of little consequence in one of the poorest places in Europe, Corsica.” He has a most extraordinary background, therefore, to become the leader of France, the leader of Europe, and the greatest threat since the Armada of Phillip II to Britain. Napoleon then was just 19 years of age when revolution broke over Paris and over France in the summer of 1789. What it must have been like to be a young man in 1789, France. Everything is challenged, everything is up for grabs. You can describe Napoleon quite accurately as a child of that revolution. But then the divisions begin again. According to your viewpoint, you can either say he destroyed that revolution by creating himself emperor.
Or you can say that he took it to success because on the bayonet points of his Grande Armee, he took the legacy of the French Revolution across Europe. Again, you have to make a decision and the decision’s yours. He is a controversial figure. I remember when I was what, 12 years of age at a boarding school in Bristol and the headmaster took some of us into his study to talk about Napoleon and he wanted to teach us how to argue and argue a case. And we were divided into two, those for Napoleon and those against Napoleon. And that argument goes on in highly academic circles in France, in Britain, right across America and Europe too. There is no final answer to that question.
In 1795, at the age of 26, Napoleon was seen as an up and coming soldier. Two years previously as an artillery captain, and that itself was unusual that he should have gone into the army and then risen so high from the artillery. If you rose high in the army in France, Britain, or elsewhere in Europe at the time, you went into the calvary. But he went into the artillery because in 1793, two years previously, he had defeated the British who were in active support of the royalist uprising when his army besieged Toulon, the French naval port of Toulon. And incidentally, at Toulon, Nelson was a captain and present with the Royal Navy, although of course neither the two men met and they were never to meet, never to meet. But he’d made his name at 1793, he’s 24 years of age.
Thus in October, 1795, in a book called “Simply Napoleon Bonaparte,” which is really about his military excellence, Gregory Fremont-Barnes writes this. “In October, 1795, the new government in Paris, known as the Directorate,” it had five directors as a committee, a cabinet if you like, at the top of the country. The new government known as the Directorate found him useful when food riots began to grip Paris and a right wing coup developed on the 4th and the 5th of October, 1795. Now a general, Napoleon deployed artillery in the street of Paris and administered what the French called his ‘Width of grapeshot.’“
He opened fire down the streets of Paris with artillery fire on rioters, simply rioting because they were hungry and wanted food. "He brought, however, a swift and bloody end to the attempted coup and earned for himself a further promotion and a command of the Army of the Interior.” This is a man clearly on the way up. Incidentally, it is in the years of the Directory that, and this is a point of history, this is the sort of thing you might be asked in a quiz. Where is the origin of directoire knickers? And the answer is during the directory in France. It was France that developed women’s underwear at the end of the 18th century.
For those who are innocent of these things, directoire knickers are also known in Britain, at least, as bloomers. And during the Second World War, I think to American as well as British troops, as passion killers. Not something that you needed to know. But when you win a large sum of money in a quiz because you know the answer of where they came from, remember me, I told you, I need a cut. So then Napoleon is a figure, not only a military figure, but he’s beginning to play on the political stage as well as on the military stage. He becomes a key player in the whole of the republic. In 1796, he was given command of the French Army in Italy.
Now remember at the time Italy is divided up into many different areas, but the most dominant, the most dominant power in Italy were the Austrians. And four years later in 1800, he won perhaps his greatest of, well, he certainly the greatest of his early battles at Marengo where he defeated the Austrians. And because he was saved by his horse, he called the horse Marengo, a white horse, and rode it afterwards. Marengo 1800 makes Napoleon now a serious military commander, not just for France, not just at this period of time, but for all French history and indeed to all European or world history. And some of you may have taken part in a balloon debate at school and might have been about military commanders.
And do you vote for Alexander the Great? Do you vote for Julius Caesar? Do you vote for Napoleon? Do you vote for Wellington? Do you vote for Eisenhower? Who do you vote for? Because after Marengo, Napoleon is up there with the greatest. Of course there’s controversy over that as well. Some military historians argue that he owed more to luck than to judgement . Others say that some of his tactics have been devised by earlier military commanders in the 18th century. But it doesn’t take away from the fact, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he was a soldier of enormous success, at least success. Now we come to a very interesting part of the history of Europe as well as Napoleon.
In 1802, the French sign the Peace of Amiens with all its European enemies. And many historians believed that that was the moment that had Napoleon accepted the borders of France that then existed, he could have concentrated his power and his genius frankly, into making France the leading country in the world in terms of social advance, of absolutely offering the benefits, both of the revolutionary ideas and of the wider ideas of the European Enlightenment. But it doesn’t happen. And that’s an interesting question of why not. Now, there’s lots of different answers to that. I think it does not happen because of Napoleon himself.
By this time, the Directory who we’ve seen are the governors of France, has been overthrown. It had failed militarily, it had failed economically in the judgement of the French elite and then a consulate was established. They often went back to ancient Rome for titles. So they established a consulate of three men, and Napoleon was one of the three consuls. And following the peace of Amiens, Napoleon declared himself First Consul. And then he declared himself Consul for Life. Whoa, stop. Consul for Life. This is hardly the philosophy behind the French Revolution of 1789. Democracy in an 18th century sense certainly didn’t mean Consul for Life.
After all, in the Britain of the turn of the century, 18th and 19th, prime ministers weren’t elected for life. And in the country which had had the earlier revolution, the United States, presidents were not elected for life. And that’s an important point in many ways. There are massive differences between French and therefore European concepts of democracy and Anglo-American concepts of democracy. And that divide, that Anglo-American European divide on the very principles of democracy lies at the base, not only of Britain, but of America’s difficulties in dealing with Europe. We simply don’t always talk the same language.
We sometimes use the same words, but we mean different things by the words we use. And in 1804, Napoleon went further and crowned himself emperor. Emperor? Pre-revolution they were kings. He calls himself emperor, but not Emperor of France, but Emperor of the French. And he convinced himself if he convinced no one else, that he was the people’s choice. Not that they were given any choice, of course. But he convinced himself, he represented the people. Well, don’t all politicians in democracies believe they represent the people? But Napoleon, I think, genuinely believed he did. And he’s Emperor of the French and not Emperor of France.
That isn’t something that came out of the Enlightenment. Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of England. Everybody knows that, but she is not Queen of Scotland. She’s Queen of the Scots. That’s her mediaeval title of the kings in Scotland, the Kings of the Scots. Why? Because it was tribal. So nothing to do with the Enlightenment at all. A leader of a tribe. And I think Napoleon is better seen as a leader of a tribe, the tribe of France, than he is to be seen as an Enlightenment, hardly elected, but an Enlightenment endorsed emperor of the people. It’s rather Tony Blair’s description of Princess Diana as the People’s Princess.
Well, he is now Emperor of the French. In a new history, a new short history of France, I mean published in the last week or so by Jeremy Black. And I like Jeremy Black as a historian. This is a, I like short books as well. But this is beautifully written. If you get real experts writing in small chunks, you get some remarkable thinking coming out of it. And this is what Jeremy Black writes. “Although propaganda presented Napoleon as always in favour of peace, the regime in practise celebrated power, not least that of victory in its activities, iconography and commemoration. The Battle of Marengo in 1800, a chaotic victory of improvisation over the Austrians was crucial to establishing Napoleon’s part in Italy.
While his defeat of Austrian, Russian and Prussian, German and Prussian armies, notably at Ulm in 1805, Austerlitz in 1805 as well. And Jena, J-E-N-A, in 1806 was fundamental to the reorganisation of much of Europe. France expanded to include the low countries, what today we call Belgium and the Netherlands. Further afield, Piedmont and Elba were annexed in 1802. Tuscany and Palmer in 1808, Rome, Trieste, Friuli and the Illyrian provinces, that is the say, Croatia, Slovenia and Istria in 1809. And Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen in 1810. There doesn’t look anything that can stop this huge wave of French military victories dominating Europe. And in its wake, as I said earlier, it brings with it the ideas of the French Revolution.
How extraordinary liberty, egality and fraternity should be delivered across Europe at the end of a French bayonet. There’s something ironic about that, but that’s what happened. Napoleon, you can express it in different ways, Napoleon stirred the pot of Europe and it was never the same again. Napoleon cut up the map of Europe and it was never the same again. He is a man of the Enlightenment. That is true. But there’s always with Napoleon a but. He’s also clearly a man that likes power. But I suspect that he’s also a man that can’t stop, to know when to stop.
There were a number of points, I mentioned the Peace of Amiens one in 1802, when he could have stopped and there will be no controversy over Napoleon today as there’s no controversy over Bismarck today. And what came afterwards with the Second and Third Reich has having to do with Bismarck. Bismark had created the state of Germany and he did so with three short wars, Demark, Austria and France. But he then concentrated on Germany itself, not on the aggrandisement of Prussia, of Germany into other land. But here Napoleon doesn’t have that view. He’s a soldier. First and probably last and somewhere in between a politician, but a politician that isn’t a democratic politician, an authoritarian politician who says, this is what we’re going to do and does it.
Perhaps he will never have been able to cope with a peace in which increasingly he would’ve had to have brought wider sections of the French population into government with him, Maybe his career was inevitable. I’ve written here on my notes for this evening, "Through these military victories from Marengo in 1800 to Jena in 1806, Napoleon became not only emperor of the French, but he became master of Europe and Britain was worried.” And down here on the south coast where I live, children around the date 1800 who would not go to sleep at night, perhaps in the heat of summer would be told, “Go to sleep or Boney will come and take you.”
He was a figure here in Britain of fear. And the only way you can deal with that is to make fun of him. And of course the British did make fun of Bonaparte in all sorts of ways in the same way that they made fun of Hitler. But be quite clear, he was a major threat to Britain. But he needed, this is an Napoleon, okay? He needed to enhance and underline his new imperial status. Now may I suggest to any of you men or women who seek high office, maybe not a crown, but maybe a presidency, a prime minister or whatever, and maybe you feel your partner isn’t quite the real deal. Do what Napoleon did, divorce and marry higher up.
He divorced Josephine and married Marie Louise of Austria and you couldn’t get more royal than Marie Louise. She’s the daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria, formerly, until Napoleon destroyed it. That that is to say cut it up. Formerly, Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire. He married Mary Louise in 1810 and she gave him what Josephine had not given him. She gave him a son and an heir. And in hereditary monarchies or whatever type and Napoleon is a hereditary monarchy that he’s established when he crowned himself. And indeed before, when he became First Consul for Life, he was moving that way. She gave him a son whom he created immediately, King of Rome. And when Napoleon was finally placed in exile after Waterloo, many Bonepartists in France recognised his son as Napoleon II.
Although of course he never reigned in France. And that’s why when Napoleon Boneparte’s nephew becomes emperor of the French in the middle of the century, he’s known as Napoleon III and not Napoleon II. His son, the Bonaparte is Napoleon II, died in 1832 at the age of 21 in his mother’s homeland of Austria and in the Austrian court. And he died of pneumonia. He had what used to be called a weak chest from the age of 16. And the doctors had become increasingly worried about him. He insisted on taking rank, officer rank in the Austrian army and none of this did him any good and so at the end of 1821, he has pneumonia and dies from it. And Napoleon’s direct line dies with him.
There are two battles, which in hindsight are said to represent the highest point of Napoleon’s military career, Austerlitz in 1805 and Jena in 1806. And Jena remains a pertinent political issue in 2021. The French defeated the Prussians.. The Prussians could not ever forgive it, and it is the Prussians who join with Wellington at Waterloo to secure the final victory over Bonaparte. It is the Prussians who in the 1870s defeat Napoleon III and proclaim the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles itself and take Alsace-Lorraine. This is the French who in 1914 seek vengeance in the First War and gaining back Alsace-Lorraine. And it’s Hitler in the Second War that wants revenge for the defeat in 1918, making the French surrender in the very railway carriage that the Germans had surrendered in in 1918.
And to prevent Jena being the poison of the heart of Europe after the Second World War, Germany and France create the common market out of which is the European Union. And you can say and argue convincingly that it was Napoleon that kick started the European Union. Had he not won at Jena, then maybe Franco-German relations would not have been as they became and as the cause, the fundamental cause for the creation of the European Union. There’s another story that goes along with the story I’ve just told you, and this is to be his nemesis. If any of you ever become a leader of a European country and you have success upon success, never ever forget there’s an island off the coast of Europe, which is not going to tolerate dictatorial rule on the continent of Europe.
The Peace of Amiens was broken in May, 1832, which saw Britain and France go back to war with each other and Fremont-Barnes writes this. “The renewed conflict between Britain and France, which began in May, 1803, initially involved only Britain and France. As the dominant naval power, Britain naturally reverted to its time-honored strategy of reimposing its blockade of the major French ports and preying on French commercial shipping. Napoleon at the same time resumed the construction of shallow draught transport in preparation for a cross-channel invasion of England by 160,000 troops. Over the subsequent months, the main construction of vessels around Boulogne grew substantially, as did the concentration of troops established in camps there. Napoleon understood that so as to facilitate an invasion, it was vital to distract a large proportion of the Royal Navy ships in order to ensure that the Channel was clear for his highly vulnerable invasion craft. But Napoleon was ignorant in naval strategy and failed to appreciate that the principles that applied to warfare on land did not necessarily apply to those at sea. He devised many plans of varying complexity, all to be dashed by one man and one victory.”
In the 21st of October 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson leads his fleet off the Cape of Trafalgar, to defeat a combined French and Spanish fleet. He’s mortally wounded and taken down to the orlop deck. And there he’s ministered to by the chaplain on board who at the first sight of blood had fainted, but now cradled Nelson in his arms. And Hardy, who’s in command of HMS Victory, goes down at last around four o'clock in the afternoon to tell Nelson that the victory is ours. And Nelson dies the hero at the moment of victory. And in December of that year, the prime minister William Pitt, who’s dying of cancer of the throat and is to be dead within a month or so, makes his final address at the annual dinner in the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor’s residence in the city of London. And in that place he says, well, he makes the shortest speech probably that anyone has ever made as an official speech because he can’t. And he’s referring back to Trafalgar and the ongoing war with France.
And he says, “England has saved herself by her exertions and will, I trust,” ‘cause he knows he won’t be there, “And will I trust save Europe by her example.” And Napoleon took no notice either of Trafalgar or Pitt’s speech. After all, he defeated the Austrians of Austerlitz in December of 1805. It looks invincible. Why should he worry about a naval battle? Well, it isn’t the naval battle that he should worry about/ In those days, you could rebuild wooden ships very quickly, the French, in fact, after Trafalgar. It’s not that. It is that Britain had avoided invasion, remained here, defiant on its island, and as such could and did create coalitions of interest against Bonaparte. And Bonaparte seems unaware of this.
And defeating the Russians and the Austrians of Austerlitz in December, 1805, you can see why a naval victory in the October seemed rather small scale, minimal impact on him, and he misjudged that moment. And he misjudged that moment badly. But also its on the 2nd of December, 1805, Napoleon mustered 73,000 men, 139 count against 89,000 Russians and Austrians of whom about 16,000 were Russians and the remaining Austrian and they had 278 guns and he won. And he won. He feels, he must have felt so all powerful. Austria withdrew from the war and that left only Britain and Russia until finally Prussia joined in, in the so-called Fourth Coalition with Britain and Russia.
But without Britain that would not have happened. Britain, Pitt and Nelson are Napoleon’s nemesis as indeed is a man fighting in Portugal and Spain, Wellington. In July of 1807, a year after his victory at Jena, two years after the British victory at Trafalgar, Poland, Prussia and Russia signed the treaty of Tilsit, leaving Britain yet again isolated. In July, 1807, Pitt now dead, Nelson dead. Britain alone stands against this man and can it succeed? With Russian and Prussia knocked out of the war, only Britain remained to face France now at the height of its power. To combat his last remaining adversary, Napoleon had already issued his Berlin and Milan decrees inaugurating the continental system by which he sought to impose an embargo on the importation of British goods to mainland ports and the exportation of continental goods to Britain in an effort to strangle its economy.
Well, he did it. In 2021, Britain’s done it to itself with Brexit, but it comes to the same thing. After the Treaty of Tilsit and the introduction of the continental system, only Portugal continued to defy the ban by accepting British imports. Portugal being Britain’s oldest ally right back to the Middle Ages. In an effort to close his final avenue of trade, Napoleon sent troops from Spain to Portugal taking advantage of the opportunity to impose his will on the Spanish as well. General Junot took Lisbon without a fight, but the French occupation of Spain was never fated to go smoothly. On the 2nd of May, 1808, the populous of Madrid rose up in support. The spirit of resistance spreads throughout the country. Guerilla bands began to spring up and prey on French detachments and isolated outposts.
The war in the Peninsula took on an entirely different character from August 1808 when a British expeditionary force cleared French troops from Portugal with further reinforcements arriving under General Sir John Moore offering an opportunity for an offensive into Spain. Napoleon crossed the Pyrenees, drove Moore back towards Coruna and the British were forced out and then Wellington arrives. And Napoleon is not to meet Wellington in Spain. Every marshal of France sent against Wellington is defeated. And when Napoleon abdicates for the first time in 1814, Wellington is already in France in Toulouse, poised to make use of the new road system of Napoleon’s to advance from Toulouse to Paris. But before he can do so, Napoleon has abdicated. And Wellington must have thought his chance of facing Napoleon on the field of battle had gone. And we know, of course, it hadn’t.
Napoleon was finally defeated, well, in two ways. In 1812 with his madcapped scheme of the invasion of Russia, which cost him both prestige, men, and cash. The following year, he’s defeated by a combined European army. no British there, at the Battle of Leipzig, known as the Battle of the Nations. He had militarily and, indeed, politically overreached himself, call it hubris if you like. Or call it simply like being on a moving walkway that you simply can’t get off. Whatever you call it, by 1812/1813 his abdication and the end of his rule in France and France’s rule over Europe would be brought to an end. And indeed it was. And Napoleon abdicates and is put by the allies on the Mediterranean island of Elba and treated with magnanimity. And the arguments began and continued to wage over Napoleon’s quality of military leadership. Some regard him as a genius, others as merely lucky.
Until at Waterloo, his luck finally ran out. The balance, this is quite difficult actually, because opinions keep changing, but at the moment the balance of military historians’ opinion is on the positive side. And Fremont-Barnes in his “Napoleon Bonaparte A Military History” writes in this way. He says this. “Many applaud Napoleon’s military school, military skill,” sorry, “Most would recognise the facility with which he applied such principles as a concentration of force, both at strategic and tactical levels, the practise of living off the land.”
Well that didn’t work very well in Russia. “The focus on the enemy’s weaknesses and the various forms of exploitation, which so often contributed to his success. All, in short, acknowledge that these remain key features of Napoleon’s method of war and synonymous with decisive result. And while most scholars continue to recognise that Napoleon regarded war as being as much an art as a science, more than ever before argue that he waived it using a combination of old principles and others developed just prior to enduring the revolution in combination with innovations of his own, thus undermining the traditional approach that attributes disproportional credit to both wholly for being attacked on this strategic innovator with little recognition offered to those who preceded him. Nevertheless, assessments continue to be mixed.”
And the choice is as ever yours. Good or bad for France, good or bad for Europe, a great general or a lucky general, your choice. I’ve concentrated on the military because that is what Napoleon himself concentrated on. Well there’s another side to Napoleon. That is the Napoleonic reforms in France itself, which were alluded to in the piece from “The Times” newspaper that I read right at the beginning. And Jeremy Black writes this in terms of, sorry, in terms of the reforms on the home front as we will put it today. And he says this in terms of what Napoleon managed to do, and he did a lot of things.
“For most of Napoleon’s reign, the territory of France itself did not experience conflict and occupation. Helped by this, a variety of other developments occurred. Thus in 1810, the Swiss born but Paris-based Abraham-Louis Breguet created the first wristwatch for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples. While the "Journal de Mathematiques Pures et Appliquees,” the “Mathematics Pure and Applied” became mathematics first successful, specialised journal. Napoleon supported educational reform and was responsible for the idea of the lycees, schools for educating the children of the elite.“ So there were very positive things. And as I said earlier, if he had taken chances for peace, this could have seen France leading the way throughout the 19th century in terms of advances in innovation.
But there’s another side to France, a far more backward side in France than say in England or Prussia. "At the same time, as throughout French history, it is necessary to note the range of experience and in the areas of Arras and Saint-Omer in 1802 and 1804 surveys revealed that hardly 40% of the men were reckoned as knowing how to read and write. And fewer than 5% of the rural population were considered well-educated. The economy also was in a pallid state, hit by the affected British blockade and by the loss of European markets, problems that helped ensure that the allied invasion of France in 1814 saw Napoleon’s control over both regime and army rapidly crumble.”
And that’s the basic dilemma when studying Napoleon. There seem almost equal minuses to pluses in his career. And some would argue, as I have, that if he’d accepted the road of peace in 1802, then France would’ve become a very model of an Enlightenment country. Now that ignores Napoleon’s own conservative, often very conservative views and that perhaps is not so well understood. But he had him in himself. He’s from Corsica, minor gentry. He is the sort of archetypal conservative politician, a small C, in British terms, a small C. A conservative, a rural conservative.
And Jeremy Black writes in this way, “Slavery was restored in 1802 and the entry to France of West Indian, Black and mixed race people was prohibited. Although in 1802/1803, Napoleon’s attempt to crush Black independence in San Dominique failed and in Haiti. As a result, Haiti became independent in 1804. The decimal calendar was discarded by Napoleon in 1805 for commercial and scientific reasons, but also as part of his wider reaction against the French Revolution and of his reconciliation with Catholicism,” even though his own religious beliefs were probably minimal. “And of his reconciliation with Catholicism, albeit both being very much on his own terms.”
He’s in some senses a reactionary. If you were doing a university postgraduate course with me, then I might ask you to think in an essay form that Napoleon’s conservative measures laid the foundation stones for the conservatism of his successors, Louis XVIII and Charles X, discuss. And there is something to discuss. Is he really the child of the revolution or is he the beneficiary of the revolution? Those who don’t like my earlier essay title can take that one. Was he the child of the revolution or the beneficiary of the revolution? And that’s why France in 2021 is divided. Are they pro or not pro Napoleon? As I said a few moments ago, he was exiled in 1814 to the Mediterranean island of Elba, but he had the free licence of the island.
In fact, he was king of the island and and ruled the island, but he’s never going to be satisfied with that. And he escapes to France in 1815 and in the so-called Glorious Hundred Days, he gathered an army. And you all remember the story of how Marshal Ney was sent by Louis XVIII to arrest him and on meeting him immediately put his army behind Napoleon and they advanced on Paris. And if you’re American, you may remember that in 1944 after D-Day when Eisenhower is in charge and has developed a sensible and straightforward plan for the capture of Paris, for the release of Paris from German occupation, de Gaulle totally ignored him and gave orders to the French commander over the head of Eisenhower and ordered an immediate advance on Paris because de Gaulle wanted to be able to say that the French had saved Paris themselves.
And want did de Gaulle who knew his history. I wish modern politicians knew their history. De Gaulle knew his history. And the order went that they were to advance on Paris on the same route that Napoleon had advanced on Paris in 1815. de Gaulle never, ever missed a trick. But we know, that unlike de Gaulle in 1944, whose political career is about to begin, in 1815, Napoleon’s political career is about to end. And he meets his Waterloo in Belgium in June, defeated by a Anglo-Prussian army. He had tried his old tactic of divide and conquer to defeat each separately, but he failed to achieve that. Why? He wasn’t in the best of health. He had piles, for example, found it difficult to ride his horse.
He was also not, he’s in his 40s, but he’s lost his, he’s an old man despite his age. And he loses and there are attempts by those around him to say he must form another army, yet another army and defend Paris and France. But it’s gone. He’s lost the French people. Emperor of the French? No, no, no longer. They’ve had enough of war. And he knows the game is up. And he abdicates a second time and he escapes Paris because he’s petrified of falling into the hands of the Russians or the Germans. And he heads to the coast with some bizarre idea that he’d join his brother in America, which was never going to be on, never going to happen.
And irony of ironies, the man who dominated Europe surrenders on the quarter deck of an English man of war to a humble English sea captain, Captain Maitland, who fought with his ship, HMS Bellerophon. And so it is to a British captain that this man who had dominated Europe, had sent frightened children to sleep in Britain, finally surrenders. Brought here to Britain first to where Torbay where Torquey the holiday resort is then to Plymouth. They would not, the Navy and the government, would not let him land. Why not? Because he was popular. Before the days of trains people rushed down, in carriages from London, all over to the southwest, to catch a glimpse of this man.
They paid to go out in fishing boats. They were rowed around the ship that Napoleon was on. He came out and waved to them. He was particularly popular amongst the ladies. There were also lawyers in Britain, very Anglo-American. There were lawyers in Britain who were prepared to defend Napoleon in a court of law and say that he was a free man. That he was merely a general and so on and so forth. And we took no blind bit of notice because they’d already decided to exile him a second time this time to the South Atlantic island of St Helena, miles from anywhere. And it’s still miles anywhere today. You want to go to St Helena, you’ve got to go via South Africa. And the British didn’t own St Helena.
It was owned by the Honourable East India Company, brackets the most dishonourable company in the history of commerce. And it was on St Helena that the British kept him to all intents and purposes, a prisoner. Not locked behind bars it’s true, but there was no possibility of escape. His letters were read and opened. He was not treated as an emperor, but as a captured general. He had what can only be described as a miserable life, I think, until his death in 1821. Of course the French have tried to argue that his death was murder by the British. Poisoned, they say, arsenic in his supper or arsenic in the wallpaper the British put on his wall. No, no. And absolutely not true.
Seven doctors did an immediate autopsy and determined that his death was caused by stomach cancer. And today that is the opinion held by all except the most virulent Bonapartists in France. He was not murdered by the British. He died in agony of stomach cancer. And now I come towards an end and like Alistair Horn asked him the question, “When was the age of Napoleon?” I ask myself the question, “How can you sum up Napoleon in just a few words?” I suppose flawed genius like the briefest of summaries or perhaps misguided genius because genius he certainly was, and flawed he certainly was.
But he left a Europe transformed, transformed by the ideas of a French revolution, of constitutionalism, if not democracy, of self-determination and of nationalism. He paved the way for the Balkans to throw off the shackles, both of Ottoman and Austrian imperial rule. He pointed the path toward Italian unity, which is to come in 1860s. With his Confederation of the Rhine, he showed that a unified Germany could be more than just an intellectual’s dream. And that comes about in 1870. His involvement in the low countries would, within 15 years or so of Waterloo, lead to part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands splitting off to make Belgium the most unlikely country you could ever wish to meet.
And even in czarist, autocratic Russia, Russian officers returning from Paris at the end of the occupation of Paris in 1814-15 and so on, took the ideas of a French Revolution home with them. They took books home with them. And in 1825, the Decembrist attempted coup d'etat marked the beginning of the long process to the overthrow of the Romanoffs in the Russian Revolution of 1917. It had a huge impact. Did it have an impact on Britain? No, not except in arrogance. In the arrogance of victory at Trafalgar, in the arrogance of victory at Waterloo, in an arrogance that shows itself in anti-French jokes, right through to 2021. There was an old joke recycled at the Euro football finals. And the old joke went like this, “We’ve run out of flags to wave in support of the English tea.”
Everyone knows a white flag with a red cross, the cross of St. George. We’d run out. And so the suggestion is made, don’t worry, buy a French flag and draw a red cross on it. The French flag being white for surrender. The surrender of Bonaparte on the court of HMS Bellerophon and the surrender of France in June, 1940. However, you could say that the French have the last laugh on Britain because Napoleon bureaucracy is alive and well and resides within the EU headquarters in Brussels.
And Alistair Horn ends his book by writing this. “Though Napoleon adopted and modified the centralization imposed on France by Richelieu and Louis XIV, it was Napoleon’s civil code and its various adjuncts that, for better or for worse, would stand the test of time and become the mosaic tablets of the bureaucrats of 21st century Brussels. Seen today the realisation of so much of Napoleon’s social agenda for Europe, it might be thought that it was Napoleon, not Wellington who won on the slopes of Waterloo.”
Well, there’s an interesting thought. A personal addendum. I defy anyone visiting Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides in Paris, not to feel of being in the presence of a genius, though an extraordinary man who changed France and changed Europe forever. But the final, final word, those know me well know I always have about six introductions and six ends. I promise you this is the end this evening. The last word goes to the 19th century British prime minister, Lord Rosebery, a Liberal, capital L, wrote a very interesting early biography of Napoleon, and he concludes his biography of Napoleon by writing this.
“No name represents so completely and conspicuously, dominion, splendour, and catastrophe. He raised himself by the use and ruined himself by the abuse of superhuman faculties. He was wrecked by the extravagance of his own genius. No less powers than those which had affected his rise Could have achieved his fall.” I’ll read that one more time. “No name represents so completely and conspicuously, dominion, splendour, and catastrophe. He raised himself by the use and ruined himself by the abuse of superhuman facilities, sorry, of superhuman faculties. He was wrecked by the extravagance of his own genius. No less powers than those which had affected his rise could have achieved his fall.”
I agree with Lord Rosebery 100%. A flawed genius, but a genius nonetheless. Thanks for listening. Thanks very much indeed. I’ve probably got lots of quick questions and comments. Shall I see what I can find?
Q&A and Comments
Oh no, I miss out the question about Dalmatians. Oh, that’s very clever. Who says?
Anthony. I once read that the French revolution was a high jump and not a long jump. The French people came down not very far from where they started. Well, you could say that, but in another way, I always think that it didn’t really end until the present constitution was introduced by de Gaulle. And then I think they did reach a moment of as sort of ending at least because now in France you can democratically have a left wing president or a left wing prime minister, but you can also have a right wing and a right wing president or prime minister. Macron is the success story of de Gaulle and de Gaulle and Macron are themselves the success story of the French Revolution of the France. But the question is, will it yet hold?
No, I’m not going to discuss Napoleon’s relations to the Jewish people because that is what’s going to be discussed by Trudy in a whole lecture to come and she will deal with that.
Yeah, chicken Marengo does indeed come from the battle. Yes. I can’t stand chicken Marengo personally.
Oh, who’s this? Andrea. In President Macron’s speech on the Bicentenary of Napoleon’s death, he made the point that Napoleon’s negative deeds cannot be judged by today’s standards, but that it is not persuasive because Napoleon reinstated, exactly, exactly. No, Macron has been absolutely caught out by this whole Napoleonic thing with the presidential elections looming. He has not known where to stand on this report.
On the other hand, Jescar Destam was a Napoleonic historian and wrote a classic book on The Hundred Days and a good historian. Yes. No, no, no. True. Who’s this, Monique? Oh, that sounds awfully French. I hope I haven’t annoyed you.
In 1795, Napoleon met Josephine de Beauharnais, who was immensely helped in making contacts in Paris society. Yes, absolutely right.
Q: Do you, Romaine, do you think soldierly inability to stop, as you say, define great leaders. How different it would’ve? A: Yeah, I’m not sure. I have to think about that. I’d have to think a lot about that. I can’t answer that quickly.
Q: Was it not the invasion of Russia that started the downfall? A: No, it was Trafalgar.
Was World War I, the first time England, oh, you do ask difficult questions. They seem to be enemies for so many years. No, there had been points in the past where we’d been ally, but based, we’d been allied in the Crimean War most spectacularly in 1855, France and Britain were fighting side by side against the Russians. That’s probably the easiest example quickly to give. But normally you’re right. Normally Britain and France are at each other’s throats. That’s why it’s marvellous for some of us anyhow, not all of us, in Britain. That’s why’s for some of us, Brexit is not good news.
I loved it when I read “Tale of Two Cities” and Carlyle’s “French Revolution.” Oh, bless you for saying that, Lydia, because it gives me the opportunity to say that at the bicentenary of the French Revolution, 1989, Mrs. Thatcher was a guest of Mitterrand. And on those occasions, political leaders give gifts and they’re normally bought by civil servants and sort of put into the leaders’ hands five minutes before the meeting. Mrs. Thatcher insisted that she would give Mitterrand, she would choose Mitterrand’s present herself. And she bought, she knew he was a bibliophile. He collected books. So she bought a first edition of Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities.” I think that’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. She also told him that we had got liberty, fraternity, and egality long before France. She had a fascinating, Mitterrand was absolutely fascinated by her. And she seems to have been, well, she was always flirting and Mitterrand flirted. They they had an extraordinary relationship that took, I’m not suggesting anything improper. Can’t imagine Mrs. Thatcher doing anything improper.
Yes. It seems incredible that Napoleon was allowed to escape. Well, well, that was a British, we were terribly, awfully nice. No, no, no, we won’t do that. And we won’t. And he simply slipped through the British cordon around the island and we’d learned our lesson. Because at St Helena that does not happen.
Yes, Irene. Oh, hello, Irene. Good or bad as a human being, not a military man made like all human beings like the curate’s say good in part. Yeah, yeah. But not many of us destroy Russia during the course of our lives. Not many of us lead to the creation of a unified Germany, which wreck havoc in the 20th century. Not many of us caused so many Europeans to die. But of course you’re right. Yeah. And everybody is parts of good and parts of bad.
Oh, Dennis, thank you so much. That is clever. Napoleon’s first exile is the subject of one of the best and best known palindromes. Able was I ere I saw Elba. Oh, I love palindromes.
Q: Would Wellington, Edward. Oh, Edward. A would Wellington have won battle Waterloo without the help of the Prussians? A: No, is probably the answer. Luca won.
Yes. Yes. That’s what I’m saying, I think.
Q: Did Napoleon himself have much education? A: Yes, he did. Particularly when he went to military school and then on to military college. Yes, he was probably well educated.
I’m not going to talk about anti-Semitism because Trudy is going to take a whole hour talking to you about Napoleon and anti-Semitism.
Q: East India company. Is there lecture or two on this topic? A: Yes. There could be. If people wanted it in the future. The East India Company is an extraordinary thing.
Q: Where is he buried? A: He’s buried now in Les Invalides in Paris. Louis Philippe negotiated for his body to be brought back to Paris from St Helena to bolster his own regime. But his regime had finished before the whole internment was done. And it was done under Napoleon III. And if you haven’t been to Les Invalides, I strongly recommend you to go. There is inevitably in France a rather good cafe next door as well. But it’s a very, I can’t really explain it. It’s a moving experience. It’s one of those that you don’t expect to be, we’ve all been to see historical places where people have been buried that are famous. Where you can go to St. Paul’s and see Nelson and I don’t get a feeling. But in Les Invalides it’s so done in such a way that you get, I don’t know. I just, I felt in the presence of something that was rather superior.
What was the, thanks.
Q: What was the title of the latest book? A: The title of latest book is simply “Napoleon.” Sorry, let’s get rid of this. It’s simply “Napoleon.” It’s by Adam Zamoyska or Zamoyski. You can easily find it on Google or wherever. It’s in paperback now. Mine’s a paperback edition. In England it costs 12.99. Far cheaper on Amazon. It’s not an expensive book. It’s thick, but it’s like all biographies. You can stop anywhere or dive in anywhere. I think this is the best book with the modern research and scholarship available. It is on my blog. And blog is Talk Historian. You can bring that up and you can see for yourselves and search for it.
No, I don’t think you’d be disappointed. Oh, hang on. It’s gone back to the beginning. I need to go on somewhere.
Q: Why is Napoleon honoured in France? A: Because the right think he created the what Napoleon called La Gloire, the Glory of France. It’s what kept de Gaulle going in World War II. La Gloire is almost untranslatable into English. It is a sense of frenchness. He gave France a belief in itself. He unified France in a way that France had not been unified before. Oh yeah, it was unified, theoretically as one country, but it was not unified. He gave France a sense of pride in itself, perhaps is the nearest I can get.
Yes. Number one, London is, Jackie is right. Is the house you can go and visit if you come to London on Hyde Park Corner of Wellington’s home. And you can also go to the country to Stratfield Saye, which was really like a palace in a country house. Beautiful place is Stratfield Saye, well worth a visit.
No, no, no, no, no. There were seven doctors on St Helena because there were French doctors, English doctors. No, there were doctors there and there were doctors there because of Napoleon. And though his body was not brought back to England with or without ice, it was buried on St Helena before it was taken under Louie Philippe’s reign, it was taken back to Paris. No, the body, he neither alive nor dead did he touch our beautiful island.
Oh yeah. Thank you. Oh, it’s Peter. I wondered who that… Yeah, you are right. Of course you’re right, Peter. But you and I know each other well enough to know, you know I never pronounce European names properly. I’m too British for that.
Thanks for, people who enjoyed it, I’m pleased you enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing it.
Oh, so Eli, sorry, Ellie. Sorry, Ellie. I agree on your sentiments, thank you for saying that. That’s reassuring if other people felt the same, and it’s not just me. You want to recommend Andrew Roberts’ book? Yes. Wellington, Napoleon. Yeah, all Andrew Roberts’ writings are good. There’s also one called “Napoleon the Great.” But if you want Napoleon itself, you want read one book? I think Zamoyski is the book to do it. Roberts’ “Napoleon the Great” is quite out, It was written quite a long time ago now. People always find it funny when I say that books go out of date and his view is opposite. Yeah.
But Zamoyski’s takes in current research and no, I won’t discuss Andrew Roberts as a historian, but he has limitations. I found Adam Zamoyski’s book too dense on the Congress of Vienna. Yeah. Well, the Congress of Vienna is a bit boring. The only part of the Congress of Vienna, which is interesting, is who’s in which bedroom?
Q: Do you have to walk to the top of the arch? A: No, no. It’s not in an arch. It’s a house next to Marble Arch. It’s an ordinary house. Well, a bit more than ordinary. So no, there’s an ordinary house.
Oh, and somebody else. Barbara, thank you. Somebody else felt the same as I did visiting Les Invalides. I think that probably brings us towards an end, Judy.
[Judy] Yes, it does, William, thank you so much. It was as fascinating as usual. Thank you to everybody who joined us today. And yes, Trudy is on tomorrow and she’s talking about Napoleon, the Jews, and Jewish identity. So please look out for the email reminder in the morning. And thank you again, William, and thank you to everybody who joined us. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-Bye all.
Thanks, William.
[William] Bye-bye. Thank you.