by Philip Dwyer
Figures tell a different story: Napoleon lost six of the twelve campaigns fought between 1805 and 1815: Egypt in 1798–9, Russia in 1812, Germany in 1813, Spain (even if he were not directly involved), France in 1814 and Waterloo in 1815. To put it another way, at the beginning of 1813 he had only lost two campaigns – Egypt and Russia. Even then Egypt was perceived to be a personal victory for Napoleon and, while the country was ultimately lost to the British, he could always convincingly blame his subordinates. Spain, on the other hand, was not yet lost, and the battles in Germany and France had not yet been fought. The retreat from Russia was a terrible blow to his prestige, and possibly to his self-belief although there is little evidence of that. So, in 1813 and again in 1814, he may have felt compelled to behave in an uncompromising fashion, believing that if he gave up any territory it would be further perceived as a loss of prestige. But Napoleon had never really been capable of compromise, at any level. The only way he could face change was if it were forced upon him. Think back to Corsica when it became evident to everyone but Bonaparte that there could be no arrangement with the leader of the Corsican independence movement, Pasquale Paoli. Whether Napoleon’s belief had its foundation in political reality is, in any event, beside the point. He was convinced that he had to keep on producing victories in order to justify his existence because he could not overcome his own inner doubts that he was no more than an upstart.
The Barbarian Invasions
When Napoleon returned from Mainz on 10 November, the atmosphere at the court was glum, and the prevailing mood in Paris one of anxiety as the imminent invasion of France loomed larger.96 A few days later, there was an attempt to revive flagging morale when a parade was organized through the streets of Paris, with a military band and the Cavalry of the Guard escorting Austrian and Bavarian flags captured at Hanau. They were taken first to the Tuileries, where they were presented to Marie Louise, and then on to the Invalides. Crowds turned out to see the parade, but the mood was lukewarm at best.97
Over the coming weeks and months, the regime had not only to prepare people for the inevitable invasion, but also to galvanize public opinion and raise new troops. Napoleon also had to justify the continuation of the war, no mean feat in the face of the reverses suffered since 1809 and his consequent loss of prestige. He did this by presenting himself as the defender of civilization. His proclamation after the battle of Lützen, for example, referred to Russia as the ‘home of slavery, barbarism and corruption where man is reduced to the level of the beast’.98 Depictions of Russians as a barbaric people oppressed by a despotic political regime, enslaved by the Orthodox Church, appeared in newspaper articles, books, pamphlets and songs, and fed into stereotypes that had existed for centuries.99 One can find, for example, the Tableau historique des atrocités commises par les Cosaques en France (Historical Portrait of the Atrocities Committed by the Cossacks in France), which appeared at the beginning of 1814 and which detailed the supposed outrages carried out by the Cossacks.100 They were described as ‘cannibals’ and as the ‘barbarians of the North’. In one history of the Cossacks, the author asserted that they had ‘always mistreated in the most cruel and ferocious manner the inhabitants of enemy countries’.101 Charles-Louis Lesur published a so-called History of the Cossacks that was commissioned by the ministry of foreign affairs as a propaganda piece. In it, one can find a description of the Cossacks around the River Ob, for example, as having ‘a small size and an unpleasant figure: their members tattooed like those of the savages of America . . . their filth disgusting, their idolatry superstitious, announce a race sunk in the worst barbarism’.102
It was a taste of what the French public was to be exposed to once the allies crossed the Rhine. They did so in the small hours of the morning of 1 January 1814 at Kaub, halfway between Mainz and Koblenz. Alexander delayed the crossing so that it would coincide with the anniversary of the Russian army crossing the Niemen, one year previously to the day, the beginning of what he saw as the liberation of Europe. There was no master plan to speak of, and no decision had been made to seize Paris. The initial goal was to take the Langre plateau, some 350 kilometres to the south-west. Political developments would then decide further military operations.
For some inexplicable reason, Napoleon seems to have ignored what his generals, as well as the head of his intelligence service, were telling him about a planned allied crossing of the Rhine at the end of 1813 and the beginning of 1814, and maintained from his position in Paris that he knew better.103 He did not arrive at the front until a month after the allies had entered French territory, by which time it was too late to impede their advance effectively. He had tried to direct the war from Paris, but by remaining there he committed exactly the type of error for which he had criticized the Directory while on his first campaign in Italy: when the orders arrived at the front they were already out of date. Then he had the gall to lambaste his generals for not carrying out his orders. Whenever a general got fed up and wrote to Napoleon giving an accurate picture of what was going on – this was what General Victor, for example, did in the middle of January 1814 – Napoleon did not even bother to answer.104
It is possible that Napoleon was surprised by the invasion and believed it could be put off by peace negotiations, but that was wishful thinking. The marshals in place retreated and seemed incapable of taking the initiative, for whatever reason, so that the eastern provinces of France were quickly abandoned to the allies. In these circumstances, discipline started to break down and the front began to collapse. One observer remarked on the similarity between the retreat from Moscow, when small isolated groups of men could be seen wandering aimlessly along the roads, and the conditions in Alsace, Lorraine and Franche-Comté, now in enemy hands, as men returned to their homes.105
As the allied armies and especially the Prussians and Russians made inroads into France, their depredations were commensurate with the lack of adequate supplies, and their desire for revenge. The list of atrocities committed by allied troops was detailed in reports compiled during the Restoration.106 Men were tied up and had to watch while their wives and daughters were violated; others were tortured to reveal supposed hidden riches. In the small town of Nogent, in Champagne, a draper was pulled by his limbs by twelve Prussians, who almost tore him apart, before they put him out of his misery with a shot to the head. All of this was grist to the Napoleonic propaganda mill, a way of arousing popular support for the defence of the patrie.
It took a number of weeks, but eventually the peasants most afflicted by the pillaging, rape and murder, and in part encouraged by Napoleon’s successes (which we will come to shortly), began to revolt. The imperial government had been urging the peasantry to do so since the end of 1813.107 Now, the small bands of armed peasants that sought revenge for allied excesses behaved in much the same way as Spanish peasants did, with ferocious brutality. Not far from Essoyes, a widow welcomed sixty Cossacks, got them drunk and then set fire to her own house with the Cossacks still inside. A woman servant at Presles killed with a pitchfork two Cossacks sleeping in a barn. Cossacks were massacred by bands of ten, twenty, fifty, three hundred peasants.108 These were, nevertheless, isolated incidents limited to north-eastern frontiers, and can be contrasted with the Franche-Comté, further south, where the Austrians were warmly greeted, or with Wellington’s campaign in south-west France where the population generally welcomed the allies, largely because Wellington kept a tight rein over his troops and did not allow them to pillage and loot. There was not, however, as had been expected by both the allies and the French imperial authorities a general uprising of citizens against the invader. Marshal Mortier complained of the utter apathy that had overtaken the people of Chaumont.109 In certain parts of the country, sentiment had turned against the regime and was blatantly pro-royalist.110 This was true of the south and south-west, disaffected by the economic consequences of the Blockade. Moreover, the depredations of their own army, which was living entirely off the land by this stage, created enormous hostili
ty, damaged Napoleon’s reputation and inured others to the fate of the regime.
A good deal of the propaganda from the end of 1812 to the beginning of 1814, well before the enemy had arrived on French soil, was directed against the Cossack. Witnesses’ accounts were published in the newspapers of the day, and they all more or less followed the same format: as soon as a town or village was occupied by the enemy, whether there was resistance or not, it was pillaged, its inhabitants molested and sometimes murdered and mutilated, the women gang-raped, regardless of age, entire villages burnt to the ground, the farm animals taken and those not wanted killed.111 The allied sovereigns were witness to these indescribable atrocities, went the accusation, and never lifted a finger to prevent them.
Anonymous, Les cosaques en Champagne (The Cossacks in Champagne), no date, probably 1814. Caricatures of Cossacks were plastered over the walls of Paris depicting them in postures that were meant to frighten – Cossacks with necklaces made of watches and ears for example.
It is impossible to know the extent to which these reports and the long litany of atrocities were exaggerated, but enough evidence suggests that Russian and Prussian troops in particular exacted a cruel revenge on the inhabitants not only of France but also of central Europe.112 And this is what Napoleon wanted to hear; he insisted that the atrocities committed by the invading allies be detailed in the press in order to rouse a population overwhelmed by war-weariness.113 As in 1792, Paris was threatened, at least in the press, with the worst reprisals by the Russians. One can read that the Russians had every intention of burning the city to the ground.114 The impression the imperial authorities wanted to create was that France was reliving the barbarian invasions all over again.115 The French of 1814 thus became the Gauls of ancient times opposed to the hordes pouring into the country from the east, a comparison made all the easier because of the parallels between Napoleon’s Empire and ancient Rome.
Napoleon was fighting a battle for the hearts and minds of his people, but it is impossible to know how far he succeeded. There is some indication that he was still popular in those frontier regions in the north-east that had been invaded, but information for the rest of France is lacking.116 Rather than withdraw from the public eye in the face of setback or defeat, he made a point of being seen as often as possible. On 20 November 1813, he moved from Saint-Cloud to the Tuileries, where he remained for the next two months, visiting public works at the Louvre, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Hôtel des Postes and the Palais des Archives. He was present at military parades almost every day, or simply milled with soldiers at the Carrousel. When in public, he often distributed gold coins to the crowds, something that he had not done before, almost as though he now needed to buy their admiration.117 He thus appeared to be a man of the people while at the same time alleviating any concerns about increased conscription in the capital by continuing a public works programme, although this did not stem the tide of unemployment that had gripped the capital. The fact that more than 20,000 artisans were out of work when the war industry needed to be revved up smacks of a lack of organization on the part of the ministry of the interior.118 Napoleon’s personal popularity nevertheless appears still to have been running high. When he went to have a look at some works being carried out by Fontaine at the Tuileries in November, for example, ‘a prodigious crowd’ surrounded him, pressing in on him from all sides, cheering him.119 It was a sure sign of anxiety among his supporters who needed reassurance that all would be well.
Napoleon’s popularity in Paris contrasts with the apathy with which the people of France were to meet the collapse of the Empire and the threat of invasion in the course of 1813 and 1814.120 The messages the regime used to stir the hearts and minds of the people of France failed, on the whole, to find a strong resonance. Part of the problem was that the imperial authorities did not appeal to love of patrie in an attempt galvanize the people but rather, and somewhat quizzically, to a sense of ‘honour’, as though they were afraid of reanimating the political fervour of 1793.121 Although opposition to the regime rarely went beyond verbal satire, at worst verbal abuse, French elite attachment to Napoleon had reached its limits. There were signs of increasing unrest and discontent with the regime. In Paris, the Legislative Corps convened in December 1813 dared insist on peace.122 Napoleon, beside himself with fury, ordered it dissolved. In Bordeaux, the uprising that Napoleon attempted to instigate in the face of an invading army in 1814 failed to happen.123 In some regions, there were riots caused by the burden of conscription, even though in most areas it was carried through without too much difficulty.124
Napoleon nevertheless prepared for the onslaught as best he could. Before leaving for the front again, he tried to tidy up a few loose ends, although all of his efforts were quite ineffectual. He withdrew from Switzerland and recognized Swiss neutrality. In the vain hope that the English would now have no reason to continue fighting, he released Fernando whom he had held captive since 1807, and attempted to broker a deal that included a secret marriage pact with his niece, the twelve-year-old Zénaïde, Joseph’s daughter.125 He released the pope from Savona in the hope that Eugène and Murat would receive wider support from the Italian population. A commission of five people was established in order to help influence public opinion.126 Rather than hide the gravity of the disasters, they were now deliberately used to help mobilize the population. Finally, Napoleon attempted to galvanize the French by dispatching senators as extraordinary commissaries, in imitation of the revolutionary representatives-on-mission that had roused the troops and the civilian population during the early days of the revolutionary wars. They were given sweeping powers to accelerate conscription and mobilize local National Guard, but in reality had little impact on the course of events.127 The idea was good but the choice of men poor; most of the extraordinary commissaries were senators who had no real ability to get down and dirty, so to speak, to spur people into fighting. Besides, unlike the representatives-on-mission during the revolutionary wars, they did not have the guillotine behind them to help motivate local populations.
None of this could overcome what the French lacked most – apart possibly from a will to fight for a man most no longer loved – matériel, especially muskets and artillery. Russia was producing between 500 and 800 cannon per year after 1808.128 Napoleon had lost over 1,200 artillery pieces in Russia. He was able to make up for that loss in 1813–14 by stripping field pieces from various arsenals, coastal batteries and his allies so that he mustered about 1,300 cannon, but the bigger problem then became ammunition. At Leipzig, he ran out of cannon shot. During the five days leading up to and including the battle of Leipzig, more than 250,000 shot were used.129 At the beginning of 1814, it was calculated that the army needed 400,000 cannon balls and charges; 100,000 were in store. The same kinds of figures can be given for the production of muskets. During the campaigns of 1812 and 1813, it was estimated that the French lost around 700,000 muskets.130 They produced about 125,000 muskets a year, but this fell far short of demand, and became more difficult once the armaments factories at Liège and Namur were occupied at the end of 1813. The British, in contrast, were not only supplying their own needs, but had exported over one million muskets to their allies by 1813, more than the total number of muskets produced by the French for the same period.131 This type of shortage in matériel applied across the board, from saddles, boots and sabres to cartridge pouches, flints and uniforms. In 1812 and 1813 huge quantities of matériel had been lost in Russia and central Europe where they had been stockpiled in various arsenals and fortresses along the Vistula, Oder and Elbe, which had then been seized by the allies. Even money was in short supply and the attempt to raise more by increasing taxes came to naught. The economy was already strained, so people either could not pay or refused to do so.132 Napoleon spent ninety-five million francs of his personal fortune to defend the Empire in 1813 and 1814.133 His failure to defeat the allies was not simply a question of individual battles or even of campaigns, nor was it only about the regime�
�s ability to conscript men. There were systemic failures in the French military and economic systems.
23
The Naked Emperor
‘I Shall Know How to Die’
Napoleon left for the army on 25 January 1814 at three in the morning.1 A proclamation issued by the Paris municipal council a few days beforehand appealed to patriotic sentiment. ‘Who would not shed his blood to preserve inviolate the honour we hold from our ancestors to keep France within her natural frontiers?’ the proclamation asked.2 Not many it would seem, since desertion was at an all-time high. The reaction in Paris to a foreign invasion was one of dread – ‘Everyone is looking at each other as though they were travellers in danger of sinking. Everyone is packing; hiding what he has of value’3 – but there was little popular support for the regime, something that can in part be explained by the dire economic straits of the working classes of Paris (in particular).4
Things at first did not go well for the allies, despite superior numbers5 – in the north-east Napoleon had about 70,000 troops facing 200,000 allied troops. Battles were fought at Brienne (29 January), where Blücher was forced to withdraw, and La Rothière (1 February), where Napoleon was outnumbered by two to one. Despite knowing of this disparity, Napoleon was nevertheless forced to engage, hoping to hold off the enemy until he could withdraw under cover of darkness. The bad weather – snow fell during the battle, reducing visibility – helped him mask the extent of his weakness as well as obliging the allies to concentrate their attack on the village of La Rothière. It changed hands three times in the course of the battle, until Napoleon decided to withdraw in good order at the end of the day’s fighting with the loss of 5,000–6,000 men, less than the number of allied losses (8,000–9,000 men).6 Nevertheless, the tactical withdrawal at La Rothière was a moral victory for the eastern powers and a blow to Napoleon’s own troops. The second battle of the campaign for France had been lost by Napoleon, and troops deserted in droves in the days that followed. ‘The Paris road was covered with soldiers of all arms,’ wrote one officer, ‘especially of the Young Guard. As an excuse to leave the army, they said they were ill or wounded.’7 The defeat also shocked Paris when news filtered through. It reignited Alexander’s desire to march on the capital, to overthrow Napoleon and to replace him with a king of his own choosing.8 At this stage, the Tsar seriously contemplated withdrawing Russian troops from Schwarzenberg’s Army of Bohemia, combining them with Blücher’s Army of Silesia, where the bulk of Russian troops were anyway, and, together with the Prussians, marching on Paris.9
