Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  But one who would know a ship, must grow up in a ship, just as one who would know ordnance must have passed his youth among big guns. Even though his admirals were astonished to find how quickly he made himself at home in naval matters, how shrewd were his questions, and how sensible were his orders, still their commendation of Napoleon was no more than the praise of a kindly expert who, tacitly, is criticising a talented amateur. Napoleon knew this well enough. Since he lacked a great admiral quite as much as a great fleet, and had never been willing to entrust the conduct of a campaign to any subordinate, he invented a new kind of war which was to enable him, after all, to get the better of England. The European ports from Hamburg to Taranto were to be closed to English ships, and thus the nation of traders was to be vanquished in a trade war. At the same time, he revived his plans of invasion ; for, could he but set foot on the island, he would be the military commander, and in his own element.

  The Emperor and the Admiral

  Just as he had done before the Egyptian campaign, so now in Boulogne, he studies the possibilities of embarkation and disembarkation. On land, his fantasy has found satisfaction and his mathematical powers have gained conquests in ardent imaginings ; and yet, all the time, his battles have been realities, have realised these imaginings. But here, at sea, he is an amateur, not an expert; is, for the first time, the onlooker instead of the man of action. In none other of his private letters do we find sentences akin to those which he writes from the coast to Josephine after a stormy night in which a gunboat has broken away from her moorings : "A wonderful sight! The minute-guns were firing; watch-fires were lighted along the coast. A raging, foaming sea; uncertainty and anxiety throughout the night. But a kindly spirit brooded over the ocean and the night. No lives were lost, and I lay down to sleep with the feeling that I had been witnessing a romantic and epic vision—so that I could almost believe that I had been looking on quite alone."

  A wonderful sight; but, alas, only a sight! The Ossianic note is sounded again, for the first time after fifteen years. Napoleon waxes romantic. How moving and how significant are the closing words of this artist, who suddenly feels that he has been robbed of the human material with which he works, and who is even a little alarmed (we cannot help but read this through the lines) at the unwonted sensation of being quite alone.

  The unfamiliar element leads him astray. When a storm is threatening, he orders a naval review. Admiral Bruix does not carry out the order. The Emperor finds that no preparations are being made, and sends for the admiral. A terrible scene.

  " Why did you not obey my orders ? "

  " Your Majesty can see that for yourself. You would not needlessly risk brave men's lives in such weather! "

  The Emperor, surrounded by his rigid officers, turns pale with wrath, and says : " Sir, I have given you an order. The

  A Chance Missed

  consequences arc no concern of yours. Do what you are told ! "

  " Sire, I cannot obey."

  An ominous pause. Napoleon strides towards Bruix, riding-switch in hand, threateningly, though the switch is not raised. The admiral draws back a step, and lays his hand on his sword-hilt. A petrified group.

  " You will leave Boulogne within twenty-four hours, and betake yourself to Holland. Rear-Admiral Magon, carry out my orders."

  A naval review is held in a raging storm. A number of chaloupes are capsized, and their crews struggle in the water. The Emperor, to save himself, jumps into the first boat; all who can, follow his example. Two hundred bodies are washed ashore next day.

  This incident, unique in Napoleon's career, a blunder, an act of cruelty, a direct disobedience on the part of a subordinate, is a warning symptom. But there is a third indication.

  A year before, an American inventor had come to Paris, and had offered the French admiralty two new inventions : one of them a ship to be propelled by steam power instead of by the wind; the other, a submarine boat which was to sink ships by the discharge of a kind of torpedo. " The man is a charlatan," was Napoleon's comment on Fulton, after an experiment in which the inventor's " plunging boat " had secured a partial success ; and he brushed the whole matter aside. If the American had brought him models of a machine gun and a field telegraph, he would have opened his purse.

  Napoleon failed to conquer England because this was the one matter in which he was not confident of victory. Failure was inevitable because here, and here only, his self-confidence was at fault; because his belief in his own powers was weakened by his want of expert knowledge and by the inaccessibility of the foe. By land ! Yes, if he could only get at this island by land ! The thought brings back to his mind the scheme of five years ago, when he had planned an attack on

  More Peace Proposals

  India by way of Herat. But for such a scheme, quiet and time are needed.

  His first aim is to keep the peace, to bring about which he has worked with his best powers for years. Immediately after the coronation, he writes in this sense to six monarchs, addressing each in a style appropriate to his correspondent's character, thinking out the effect of every detail, and considering even the exact wording of his signature. Note, for instance, how he writes to the shah :

  " My reputation reaches so far, that you cannot fail to know who I am and what I have done ; how I have made France supreme among the nations of the West; and how great an interest I take in the rulers of the East. . . . Orientals are full of courage and spirit, but their ignorance of certain arts and their neglect of military discipline put them at a disadvantage in war when they are faced by soldiers from the North. . . . Write me your wishes, and we will renew friendly and commercial relationships. . . . Written in my Imperial Palace of the Tuileries ... in the first year of my reign. Napoleon." But, in the heading, the document sets forth a title which never existed, a title which Napoleon obviously uses to show the ruler of Persia that the writer is the general who made himself famous in the Egyptian campaign. The document purports to come from " Bonaparte, Emperor of the French."

  On his table, as he signs the letter to the shah, lies a letter to George III., though England and France are at war. It is penned with wonderful art, and is both moving and politic : " Does not all the blood that is being shed without apparent advantage to any one, touch the consciences of the governments ? I am not ashamed to take the first step. It seems to me I have shown the world that I have no dread of war and its caprices. My heart, indeed, longs for peace ; but war has never dimmed my fame. I implore Your Majesty not to deprive yourself of the good fortune of restoring peace to the world! Do not leave this precious task to your children.

  Again Attacked

  Never was there a more favourable opportunity of stilling angry passions. If this chance be missed, what will be the outcome of the war ? During the last ten years, Your Majesty has won more territory and more treasure than all Europe possesses. What further could you expect from the war ? "

  How could the writer fail to smile at the realisation that the last argument could with equal force be turned against himself ? The appeal is fruitless, for neither England nor the rulers on the mainland will tolerate the new power of France or its upstart emperor. A fourth coalition of the princes against the republic is imminent.

  During the years of peace, he has been tolerably well content. His intimates at Malmaison have often described him as cheerful. Now he must take up arms once more, and resign himself to the knowledge that " it lies in the nature of things to continue this struggle between the past and the future, for the enduring coalition of our enemies makes it essential to attack them if we are to escape annihilation." There is the simple truth, spoken without exaggeration and without bitterness. If he did not create this nature of things, at any rate he stabilised it. Even though the first wars of France in the revolutionary epoch were purely defensive, the subsequent campaigns became offensive, and were transformed into wars of conquest by the impetus of the people's army and the outstanding genius of its commander.

  Nevertheless, when h
e is thus challenged by opponents whom he has twice defeated, can we wonder that concrete plans which have hitherto followed his soaring imagination at a respectful distance, should now, likewise, begin to outsoar the boundaries of reason ? In the opening years of the nineteenth century and here in the West, the Emperor might have kept the peace for another decade, that in the end he might measure his strength against England's in Asia. But when Europe's persistent desire for revenge upon revolutionary France spurs him into action, he conceives the great plan of a unified European realm.

  Charlemagne

  Now for the scond time (and for the last time down to our own days) a great and saving work will be attempted, and the attempt will fail.

  Thus it is that Napoleon's crowning political thought issues out of a personal defensive. Now, when a new coalition is being formed, and formed against him, his ideal takes a fresh shape. For years his inward gaze has been concentrated on Alexander ; now, instead, he sees the figure of Charlemagne. He goes to Aix-la-Chapelle, for a ceremonial visit to the tomb of the great Frankish emperor. " There will be no peace in Europe," he says at this time to his trusted companions, " until the whole continent is under one suzerain, an emperor whose chief officers are kings, whose generals have become monarchs. . . . Would you tell me that this plan is but an imitation of the old imperial constitution ? Well, there is nothing new under the sun ! "

  This gradual transformation of his ideal, and the sustenance of the new ideal by the historical imagination, has immeasurable consequences. Precisely because the adoption of the Carlovingian scheme involves for him a renunciation, he storms forward in pursuit of it as if he were fighting for a province. The haste with which he tries to reconstruct the empire of Charlemagne is new, is symptomatic of a fever which will drive him towards new goals before he has reached the old ones.

  XI

  Since the spring, his army has been assembled in Boulogne in readiness for the repeatedly postponed landing in England. But in the autumn, when the menace of a fresh Austrian attack becomes a certainty, with a change of plans which is decided on in a couple of days, and is carried out in a fortnight, he directs all his forces eastward, and is across the Rhine in advance of the news of his first movement. Just before leaving the coast, he dictates to Daru the whole scheme of the attack on Austria, " the order and length

  Marching to Victory

  of the marches, the meeting places of the columns, the attacks by storm, the movements and the blunders of the enemy—all this two months before the events, and at a distance of six or seven hundred miles from the scene of action."

  Austria had good reason for taking up arms once more. On the knob of the new king of Italy's sceptre, the lion of Venice was graven. This, and the seizure of Genoa, were urgent warnings to the Habsburg ruler not to venture across the Alps a third time. Francis must be content to fight the matter out on German soil. England was liberal with proffers of money ; and the inexhaustible forces of Russia were again available for the coalition, as they had been when it was victorious during Bonaparte's absence in Egypt. The new tsar was determined to overcome Europe's old prejudice against Russia, and, with an exchange of roles, to draw his sword against the tyrant of the West. The secret of Napoleon's fighting technique had been learned, and this time the engineer should be hoist with his own petard.

  But the soldier of genius can evolve new methods of victory. By forced marches he encircles the Austrians before they realise what is afoot, encloses them in an iron ring at Ulm, and compels the capitulation of an army which has not even a chance to fire a shot. " I have attained my end, and have annihilated the Austrian army by simple marches. Now I shall turn against the Russians. They are lost."

  The habit of success is making him thrifty of his words. " I had a rough time of it, rougher than necessary," he writes to Josephine ; " wet through day after day for a week, and my feet very cold." Among the gold-bedizened marshals, who are for the first time parading their splendours on foreign soil, stands Napoleon to receive the capitulation of Ulm. He wears the uniform of a private soldier, a mantle weather-worn at elbows and skirt, a hat without a cockade. His arms are locked behind. Of the imperial purple there is no sign.

  Trafalgar

  Once more, as on the evening after Marengo, he offers peace, sends an admonitory letter to the defeated Austrian emperor, writing as usual with the frankness which is so annoying to the diplomats of Europe : " You will understand that it is only right and proper if I take advantage of my good luck to impose, as condition of peace, that you should give me guarantees against a fourth coalition with England. . . . Nothing would make me happier than to combine the tranquillity of my people with your friendship, upon which I venture to make a claim, despite the number and strength of my enemies in your entourage." At the same time, he marches on Vienna.

  Then, while he is advancing at topmost speed, comes a blow. He learns that two days after his victory on land had come the sea-fight of Trafalgar, when England had almost annihilated the French fleet. Eighteen ships have been lost; Nelson is dead ; the French admiral is a prisoner. Is this another disastrous hour, like the one when the news of Aboukir reached him in the desert ? Courage! Then the situation was a hundredfold more difficult. We are not now cut off from Paris by the sea; we need no ships. With redoubled speed he marches on Vienna, which the enemy surrenders without a blow.

  But the tidings of Trafalgar have renewed Francis' fixity of purpose, and have made Alexander firmer than ever. Both try to win over Prussia, which hesitates, and protracts negotiations. Napoleon vainly tempts the tsar with the promise of Turkey. In Briinn there is a great game of hide-and-seek, in which each power tries to keep the others in suspense and is disavowed by its own plenipotentiaries. The Emperor is the only ruler who improvises a political idea. Two days before the decisive battle, for which preparations are already being made, he writes to Talleyrand, who is negotiating in Briinn :

  " I should have no serious objection to handing over Venice to the elector of Salzburg, and Salzburg to the house of Austria. I shall take Verona ... for the kingdom of Italy. . . . The elector

  Eve ofAusterlitz

  can call himself king of Venice if he has a fancy-that way.

  " The electorate of Bavaria would become a monarchy. ... I will give back the artillery, the magazines, and the fortresses, and they must pay me five millions. . . . To-morrow, I think, we shall have a pretty big battle with the Russians. I have done my utmost to avoid it, for it is only useless bloodshed. I have exchanged a few letters with the tsar, and learn from what he writes that he is a good fellow, with bad counsellors. . . . Write to Paris, but don't say anything about the battle, for that would make my wife anxious. You don't need to worry. I am in a very strong position here, and my only regret is for the almost needless bloodshed which the battle will cost. . . . You write home for me; I have been in camp among my grenadiers for the last four days, and have to write on my knees, so I can't manage many letters."

  Such is the Emperor's mood just before the most famous of his victories. While he is studying his maps, noting the name of every Moravian village, the width of every stream, and the condition of every road, and while he does his best to keep himself warm by the camp-fire, he is thinking of the ministers in Paris who are awaiting his commands, and of his wife who may be anxious. In the same half hour, he drafts a new programme for the partition of four or five States, talks of new crowns, of war indemnities, and of handing over fortresses. Twice his laments for the useless bloodshed light up the written page like the rising sun of one of these December days. Need we be surprised that such a man conquers the legitimate princes, who at this moment are dining in their palaces ?

  In the evening, when he learned the enemy's movements, he clapped his hands, and," trembling with joy " (the words are his adjutant's), said : " They are walking into the trap ! They are delivering themselves into my hands ! By to-morrow evening, their army will be annihilated ! "

  The Holy Battalion

  The
n he sits down with his staff to supper in a peasant's hut, and, an unusual thing with him, remains at table for some time after his meal, emotioned and musing. He goes on to speak at considerable length concerning the nature of tragedy. From this, he passes to Egypt: " If I had taken Acre, I should have donned a turban, have clad my soldiers in wide Turkish trousers. But only in the utmost need should I have exposed my Frenchmen to serious danger; I should have made of them a corps of immortals, the Holy Battalion. I should have fought the war with the Turks to a finish by the use of Arab, Greek, and Armenian levies. I should have won a great battle at Issus, instead of in Moravia, should have become Emperor of the East, and should have made my way back to Paris through Constantinople." The concluding words, so one who heard the soliloquy tells us, were accompanied with a smile, as if to show his awareness that he was being carried away by a rapturous dream.

  But is not the scene we are describing a dream ? Must we really and truly believe that, little more than a century ago, a mortal man, the understudy of a demigod, stormed across modern Europe and remoulded it in accordance with his will ? Did it not all happen in the Homeric age, when two princes in single combat would settle the fate of generations ? Or, perhaps, he is a character in a fairy-tale, this man in the middle thirties, a little fellow, seated in a wattle-and-dab hut, on an unknown plain. He wears a greasy coat, a clammy shirt; stuffs potatoes and onions into his hungry mouth. Next day, by this one battle, he will renew the glories of Charlemagne, dead a thousand years since. Now, over night, his unbridled imagination wanders across Asiatic deserts, where a stone-heap successfully resisted him ; dwells on that old frustrated plan; while his errant thoughts follow the wraith of the Macedonian to the Ganges.