When Napoleon accepted his defeat in April 1814, he accepted also the idea that he would go into exile. Exile was to me made a less onerous punishment because the French government promised to pay him six million francs a year as his pension.
It was suggested that he might go to Corfu or Corsica, the country where he was born. However he chose Elba, an island between Corsica and Italy.
Enfola Beach, Elba. Photo: Michael Joachim Lucke
Besides his pension he had been promised that he would retain the status of a sovereign, so the Emperor of France became the absolute ruler of this island of about 85 square miles, and a few smaller islands around it. As the ruler, he was entitled to his own army, although, compared to the armies he had once led, it was little more than an honour guard, with around 700 men.
At first, Napoleon seemed reconciled to exile. The pension, he had observed, was “a great deal for a soldier as I am”. He was to be joined by his sister, Pauline, who was too ill to travel with him when he first left France, and he expected his mother, his wife and his son to move to Elba later.
He threw himself enthusiastically into public works: building new roads, improving the quality of the streets, and making plans for the development of the iron mines that were the country’s main industry. To the irritation of the Allied powers, he started to recruit new soldiers from Italy. Arguably, as the recognised ruler of Elba, he had a perfect right to do this. In any case, he pointed out that with Moorish pirates regularly operating in the area he had a duty to maintain an army large enough to garrison the defences of Elba and its surrounding islands.
Flag designed by Napoleon for Elba
Princess Pauline did not arrive until June, but her appearance at Elba substantially improved social life on the island with balls, concerts, and theatrical performances enlivening the place. What had originally been a guardhouse to the mansion that Napoleon had made his home was turned into a theatre, where plays were performed by the princess herself, her ladies and the officers of the guard.
Whether the 700 soldiers of Napoleon’s private army were amused by the new social opportunities we do not know, but it is certain that they were bored and Napoleon himself referred to them affectionately as his “grumblers”. The soldiers who had accompanied Napoleon to Elba were all volunteers – indeed, some officers had resigned their commissions and enlisted in the ranks so that they could go into exile with their leader. They constituted some of his most loyal troops, many of them battle hardened. Napoleon regularly reviewed them and insisted that they continue to train. Artillery enthusiast that he was, he had them practising regularly with both regular round shot and heated shot. Despite this, though, there is no doubt that they found life on Elba, though comfortable, profoundly dull.
Napoleon’s enthusiasm for his new realm gradually waned. To his dismay, the French government reneged on the promise of a pension and the cost of maintaining his court and his army vastly exceeded the revenue that could be extracted from Elba’s iron mining and its other limited revenue-raising opportunities. Servants were let go, building plans were abandoned and Napoleon, from keeping himself busy inspecting his projects around the island, began to sulk around the house, putting on weight.
Napoleon on Elba
The arrival of his mother, to whom he was devoted, improved his mood, but he was genuinely distressed when it became clear that his wife and son were not to join him. His wife was Marie Louise (who had replaced Josephine in 1810). She was the daughter of Emperor Francis II of Austria and the Austrian government was unhappy with the idea of her and her son forming the focus of Napoleon’s new court. She was persuaded not to join him and Napoleon seems to have accepted this, but he could not come to terms with the idea that he would never again see his son.
The shortages of money and the absence of his son soured his mood. He regularly received news of the situation in France from his supporters there as well as studying the French and British newspapers. By the spring of 1815, he was convinced that there were plans to force him from Elba – plans which he said he would resist by force. “Avant cela il faut faire une brèche dans mes fortifications, et nous verrons.” He believed that the Allies might send him to St Helena and subsequent events suggest that this may have been in their minds.
Faced with what Napoleon saw as a threat to his future on Elba, the refusal of the French to pay his pension or the Austrians to allow his son to visit the island, he looked at the disenchantment of the French with their restored monarchy and decided that he would be better off returning to Paris.
Napoleon’s brief experiment with ruling a small island in the Mediterranean was coming to an end and the events that would lead to Waterloo were being set in motion.
An aside on that palindrome
Napoleon never created the famous palindrome, ‘Able was I ere I saw Elba.’ The first recorded use of it is from 1848, long after Napoleon’s death. It appears in an American publication, Gazette of the Union, where it is credited to an anonymous Baltimore author, known only as JTR.
Further reading
For a detailed account of Napoleon’s time on Elba see The Island Empire by the anonymous ‘author of Blondelle’, published by T Bosworth in 1855 and available in Google Books.
A shorter summary is available in Life and Campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte translated from the French of M A Arnault and CLF Panckoucke, published by Philips Samsung and Company of Boston in 1857 and also available in Google Books.
For a detailed discussion of the origin of the palindrome, see Quote Investigator: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/15/saw-elba/
A word from our sponsor
Napoleon was right to believe that there were many people in France who hoped for, and in some cases actively worked for, his return. Amongst other plots, there was one to assassinate Wellington, who was representing British interests in Paris. This period is the background to the beginning of Burke at Waterloo.
Of course, Napoleon did leave Elba and eventually met the British at Waterloo were James Burke played a small, but crucial, role. [Spoiler alert: Napoleon lost.]
Since I visited Portugal to research for Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras, I’ve been a fan of the country and its long relationship with England. I’ve been quite irritated in the last few weeks to keep hearing that America is “our oldest ally”. Whether you think America is an unreliable partner or a valued friend, it’s simply not true that it’s our oldest ally. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was established by the Treaty of Windsor in 1386 and is the oldest alliance that is still in force by political bilateral agreement. In 2022, Britain and Portugal signed the UK-Portugal Joint Declaration on Bilateral Cooperation, thereby reinforcing the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and confirming its status.
Lisbon
I took to social media last week to point this out. Most of my social media posts vanish without trace, but some people noticed this one and were even kind enough to express an interest in a book set in the context of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance.
As with most of my stories about James Burke, my hero’s adventures are entirely fictional, but the background is historically accurate. Burke is in Lisbon, hunting down French agents who might reveal the secret of the Lines of Torres Vedras. The lines were a series of interlinked forts and gun positions designed to stop any French advance on Lisbon. As one of the people who commented on my post said, “Those Lines, completely astounded and defeated the French in their invasion of Portugal.” The French, who had expected to capture Lisbon and spend the winter feeding off the allies’ food supplies, found themselves stuck in countryside which Wellington had turned into a desert. The British had conducted a ruthless scorched earth policy north of the lines, which was devastating for the French who relied on living off the land. With no food or shelter, French losses were considerable. Not only were the British able to spend the winter in comparative comfort, but Wellington’s scheme substantially reduced the effectiveness of French forces in the Peninsula without the tedious business of engaging them in battle. (Wellington was careful to avoid set-piece battles in the Peninsula unless he was very confident of winning.)
The plan would only work if the French were unaware of the existence of the Lines. If they knew that they faced an impregnable obstacle, they would retreat to Spain and spend the colder months in winter quarters.
The Lines extend over 30 miles from the Tagus to the Atlantic and by 1812 incorporated 152 redoubts armed with 534 guns. Yet the secret of the Lines was kept until the French fell into the trap.
We know that the French had spies active in Lisbon. At the very end of 1810 four spies fled Lisbon to join the French. This was the historical peg on which Burke’s adventures were hung.
You could not disguise the fact that so many forts were being built. The secret was kept because Colonel Fletcher (pictured), the engineer responsible for their construction, managed to conceal the way in which the forts fitted together, alongside changes to the landscape where roads were blocked, bridges were demolished, and rivers were widened. The result was impregnable. They certainly came as an unexpected shock to the French commander, Masséna when he first encountered them in October 1810. ‘Que diable,’ is supposed to have been his immediate response.
Colonel Fletcher features in the story, as does the British general, Beresford. Readers who have been following Burke since his first adventure, Burke in the Land of Silver, may remember him as the British commander in Buenos Aires.
I can strongly recommend a visit to the remains of the Lines, which have held up surprisingly well for over 200 years. You can read about them and see my own photographs on my blog HERE and HERE.
Search ‘1812’ on your favourite social media platform and you’ll get a surprising number of hits for a war from 213 years ago. Until a few weeks back, I doubt one person in a thousand could tell you anything about the war if they lived in either Britain or America. Rather more knew about it in Canada.
Why the sudden interest?
In a recent speech at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump threatened military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama canal. He also expressed enthusiasm for the idea of making Canada the 51st state. When asked if he might consider military force against the Canadians, he replied that he would not use troops but, rather, “economic force”. Doubtless the reassurance that Canada would not face American tanks rolling across the border will have come as a relief to the folks living north of the 45th parallel but the threat of economic force is still a belligerent threat. Many Canadians view Trump’s speech as a preparation for a hostile annexation of their country. This has reminded people that the USA has history in this regard. In 1812, American troops invaded Canada with the intention of seizing the territory from the control of the British and allowing the growing United States to expand northwards.
What AI imagines Trump might have looked like leading his forces in 1812
The War of 1812 was a real war but, in world affairs, rather overshadowed by events in Europe, where the continent was engaged in a brutal conflict with Napoleon. In fact, if you ask any European to tell you about military conflict in 1812, their most likely response (after ‘I don’t know anything about history’) will mention Napoleon’s march on Moscow, if only because Tchaikovsky wrote his famous 1812 Overture about it.
With the British army and navy having other things to do, there were few British troops available to fight in North America. The war was therefore fought between US troops and state militias on one side and a small British force, reinforced by Canadian militia. Both sides also made tactical alliances with Native American tribes, although the native forces were generally more sympathetic to the British, who some of them considered might offer protection against US expansion into their territories. The Americans and British also fought on the high seas with ships of both nations duelling it out in what was effectively a separate conflict.
The result was, perhaps inevitably, a scrappy little war which dragged on for almost two years. With such a long border and few settlements within striking distance, the war degenerated into little more than a series of raids. The Americans would burn a village in Canada; the Canadians would burn a slightly bigger village in the United States; the Americans would burn a town in Canada and so it went on until, in 1814, the British eventually burned down the White House.
For Canadians, the war was a serious affair. Thousands were killed in battle or died of disease during the war. Canadians saw it as, in the literal sense of the word, an existentialist contest. Defeat would have meant the end of their country. At the time, Canada was British colony. Although the Canadians relied on the British Army for defence in 1812, many historians consider that driving the Americans out of their country was a significant point in their development as a nation.
For Americans, the War of 1812 became part of their country’s foundation myth. It was when the young country came of age, taking on the mighty British Empire and fighting them to a standstill. As with most myths, the historical facts of the war are often subverted to serve the interests of the myth makers. In reality, the war was an inconclusive affair. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba in 1814, the Americans realised that Britain would soon turn its full naval might against them. British reinforcements were already on their way to Canada and America was anxious to end the war before they faced almost certain defeat.
The resulting peace settlement restored the situation that had existed before the war started. The pre-war borders were reinstated. The lives lost had been sacrificed for nothing. In the end, the only real losers were the native Americans. Britain made a token effort to protect its tribal allies in the peace treaty that ended the conflict, but both sides knew that the British would not go to war to protect the indigenous people. Deprived of the opportunity to expand northwards, the United States pursued its movement west with renewed vigour and acted ruthlessly against any native tribes that got in the way. In 1800 the Native American population of what was to become the United States was estimated at 600,000. By the decade 1890-1900 it was down to around 237,000.
Until now, most people seemed happy to let the events of 1812 be forgotten. In the last few weeks, they suddenly seem relevant again. Canadians, at least, are remembering the war. They’re not very happy about what happened. Perhaps the rest of us might try to recall it and avoid another messy (but hopefully bloodless) unnecessary conflict.
Burke and the War of 1812
It’s not often that my books about the adventures of the British spy, James Burke, are suddenly caught up in the affairs of the modern world. Burke was a real person who spied for the British during the Napoleonic Wars. Although my first Burke adventure, Burke in the Land of Silver, is closely based on truth, his subsequent adventures are largely fictional. There is no evidence that he ever operated in North America, but he moved around a lot and may well have been involved in events there. At the urging of fans who enjoy reading about the War of 1812, I have written a story featuring native Americans, the Washington of the time, the Ohio militia, the siege of Detroit, and the betrayals and double-dealings that are part of Burke’s stock in trade. It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye, as my mother used to say, or, in this case until a farcical series of political misjudgements creates a bloody conflict that brought no good to anyone. As I said, “Suddenly caught up in the affairs of the modern world.”
Burke in the Land of Silver, is currently out with beta readers. (Let me know if that’s something you would be interested in.) Assuming they don’t find too many mistakes, it should be published early this Spring.
Picture Credits
Featured image shows the British burning Washington from Paul M. Rapin de Thoyras’ book, The History of England, from the Earliest Periods, Volume 1 (1816). Source: Library of Congress
Other pictures:
Pencil drawing depicting soldiers starting the fire in the White House is from the New York Public Library
The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October 1812. Library and Archives Canada, 2895485
I’m so jealous of people who can just sit down and write. Back in the day, when I wrote books and reports for business, I could churn out words faster than most, but not a lot of imagination was required. Writing fiction, I find much harder work.
These blog posts fall somewhere between the two. They’re not as mechanical as much business prose but, although I am sometimes reminded that people will judge me on the quality of my writing, I’m not as worried about style as I am in my novels. Even so, they take a little while to write, especially if they have any historical information in them because I’ve learned that over the years that is always best to check details rather than rely on memory.
At the moment, I’m working on the next James Burke book, provisionally, if unimaginatively, called Burke and the War of 1812. I’m finding it more than usually challenging. Whilst by now I know enough about the Napoleonic wars not to have to keep checking every detail, the War of 1812 is new territory to me.
Not that long ago, I had no idea what the War of 1812 was. If that’s you too, it was a silly little scrap between Britain and the young United States of America notable, in this country at least, for the British burning down the White House. Most people in Britain tend to overlook it because there were other things going on in Europe at the time: Napoleon invading Russia for one.
Because it was quite a small war, there were few great strategic clashes of armies. Instead there was a fight here, a clash there, a naval engagement somewhere else. Pulling it all together into something that can be made a coherent adventure for one person has proved a challenge. In fact, it has proved impossible, so for much of the time James Burke and his trusty sidekick William Brown are operating independently from each other. This brings its own problems in writing as keeping track of them and having them meet up at crucial moments is not that straightforward. Which is why this week’s post is a short cri de coeur about the struggles of a historical novelist before I dive back into a world of Shawnee warriors, heroic colonials and (sorry American readers) dreadful Yankees.
At the current rate of progress, Burke and the War of 1812 should see the light of day early in 2025.
Featured photo: The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October 1812. Library and Archives Canada, 2895485
When my wife was young, she lived in a small village in mid Wales. One day, one of her neighbours decided not to shop in the local market town but to travel away to the big city. When she got there, she found a junction that was controlled by traffic lights. She was so freaked out by this bit of modern technology, that she had to be guided through the town by a friendly policeman. True story.
There are many anecdotes about how, until comparatively recently, people didn’t travel the way they do today. Laurie Lee’s famous novel, Cider with Rosie, describes how, in the middle years of the last century, many people never travelled more than a day’s walk from their village. So we have this notion that people’s lives used to be very limited geographically.
In fact, around the beginning of the 19th century, when my James Burke books are set, the world was not nearly such a big place as we think. The Napoleonic Wars were, in their way, world wars. British forces clashed with the French and their allies throughout Europe and the Middle East. The French supported Indians fighting the British in India and Britain invaded South America. In London’s National Army Museum there is a map showing the movements of one private soldier during this period. Over the course of just a few years, he travelled halfway round the world.
My story follows the life of a real person, James Burke. He was born in Ireland but went to France to fight under the French flag. The French sent him to Saint-Domingue (now part of Haiti). There, he surrendered to the British and returned to this country. Eventually he was ordered to Buenos Aires. He also travelled to Spain and spent time in Brazil. He will have seen much more of the world than the average man of the mid-20th century. I’m now writing a book that has him in North America. There’s no evidence that the real James Burke ever went to North America, but many British soldiers did and he might have been one of them.
Colonialism in those days made the world, in many ways, a very small place. It also allowed for adventures on a very grand scale. I hope you enjoy reading about them.
I really enjoyed writing Burke and the Pimpernel Affair. It’s a straightforward spy story with more than a nod to Baroness Orczy’s hero, freeing French prisoners from Paris gaols.
Much of the story revolves round the Conciergerie which was the main prison during the Terror and which still housed prisoners under Napoleon. I’d often seen the building from outside without knowing what it was and I looked forward to visiting it while I was working on the book. Then came covid and visits to Paris were postponed indefinitely. Even when the city was open to tourists again, buildings like the Conciergerie remained closed and my research all had to be done online. Now I have finally made it over to France to see the places I had written about. It was great fun!
This is the Conciergerie.
It used to combine court buildings and a prison. The courts are still there but most of the cells have been lost in the extensive remodelling the place went through in the 19th century. Some remain as museum pieces.
The palace complex (the Conciergerie was originally a royal palace) includes the chapel of Sainte Chapelle. At the time Burke was there, it was used as a library. Now it has been restored as an astonishingly beautiful church.
The main entrance to the building was up a grand flight of steps which a wounded Burke flees down after the escape has not entirely gone to plan. Here it is.
Sadly, there was no car waiting to whisk him away.
It was lovely to visit the real site of Burke’s fictitious adventures. I went to Malmaison as well, but that will have to wait till next week.
Buy the book!
Burke and the Pimpernel Affair is huge fun, featuring thrilling gaolbreaks, fun with the Empress Josephine and a surprising amount of historical fact hidden away in Burke’s most outrageous adventure. Buy it for just £3.99 on Kindle or £9.50 in paperback.
