Lynn Bryant studied history at university and her books,
though an exciting read if enjoyed as pure invention, are excellent primers on
the history of the Napoleonic Wars. It does mean that any review of her books
ends up being a discussion/instant summary of historical incidents, so I’m
moving this from my occasional Tuesday book review slot to here on Friday.
People said they wanted more blog posts about history, so history you will get.
‘This Blighted Expedition‘ is the second in a series of books about Hugh Kelly, the Manx captain of the fictional HMS Iris. You’ll probably enjoy it more if you read the first in the series (‘An Unwilling Alliance’) but you don’t have to have read that to enjoy this one.
The Walcheren Campaign: the facts
Captain Kelly is off to Walcheren, arguably Britain’s
greatest military disaster of the early 19th century. Never heard of
it? That is so often the way with great military disasters. (Don’t cite the
Charge of the Light Brigade: this was a whole different level of awful.)
Walcheren was an island that commanded the approach to Antwerp, where the
French had a large number of ships that the British quite liked the idea of
sinking. To do this, they would need to land on Walcheren and then leapfrog
troops to Antwerp to capture the town. This was to be achieved by transporting
around 40,000 troops in one of the biggest fleets ever assembled. What could
possibly go wrong?
The answer is: practically everything. Delayed by poor
administration and bad weather, the fleet set off so late that the French were
prepared for them. Adverse winds meant that the Navy couldn’t provide the Army
with its promised support. Maps were unreliable and details of French defences
were out of date. The weather was appalling. Worst of all, it turned out that
Walcheren was a breeding ground for mosquitoes that carried malaria.
The evacuation of Walcheren by the English – By Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux
The Army was struck down by plague of almost biblical
proportions: four thousand died of malaria or typhoid fever. (Only 106 died in
combat.) Many of the survivors were plagued with recurring bouts of fever for
the rest of their lives (a typical problem with malaria). Wellington complained
that troops sent to joint his Peninsular campaign after Walcheren were often
hit with fever on arrival and were unfit for service.
So what line does the book take?
As with her other books, Bryant neatly interweaves romantic threads and straightforward military history in a way that many other authors find hard to get right. Hugh Kelly is still married to Roseen, the girl he courted in ‘An Unwilling Alliance’. She is now the mother of his young son and, though she has travelled with her husband on non-combat missions in the past, she is now firmly left behind when he sails into danger. News of the sickness in Walcheren, though, has her abandon her son with friends to sail to the Low Countries so that she can help to nurse the sick. It’s a credible plot line and the story benefits from her perspective as well as that of the fighting men.
Not that Roseen is the only romantic interest in the story. There are two other women who appear, one taking a significant role while the other seems more likely to feature in future books. The formidable Katja de Groot, a Dutch businesswoman, is a well-drawn and fully realised character, who takes up with a British soldier who is billeted on her. The other, a British girl who is one of the startling number of hangers-on who have come to see the fun, is more sketchy. She’s a sweet young thing whose father is a brute and who is being shown-off to any putative husband with the money or connections to improve the family’s social connections. The ending suggests she will return. One of Dawson’s characters is smitten: “She is intelligent, witty and very lovely.” We are, I am sure, going to discover her hidden depths in the future.
The number of romances gives an idea of the sheer scale of Bryant’s book. We follow not only Captain Kelly and his remarkable First Lieutenant Alfred Durrell, but a lot of the soldiers they work alongside. Many of these are in the fictitious 110th Regiment whose adventures in the Peninsular are the subject of her other series, the Peninsular War Saga, which allows her to have already fully developed characters available for this book. Reading the Peninsular War Saga may mean you enjoy ‘This Blighted Expedition’ even more, but I’ve read only the first in the series and I had no problems with understanding the nature of the 110th.
Durrell is attached to Home Popham, the ambitious post-captain who, despite his lowly rank, is widely credited as the man behind the whole disastrous expedition. Durrell is also an acquaintance of Lord Chatham, the nominal commander of the enterprise. Through his eyes, we see the way that the expedition is led and some of the inter-personal and inter-service squabbles that contributed to the disaster.
It is a tribute to Bryant’s skill that, except for some
junior officers, she keeps the vast cast well delineated so that even a
moderately inattentive reader like me seldom finds himself muddling his characters
together.
There is a certain amount of military action which provides
some excitement, but most of the drama takes place in the meetings of senior
officers. Bryant takes the line that Lord Chatham was set up to take the blame
for Walcheren because it was politically expedient for him to become the
scapegoat, although we are left in no doubt that Popham is the villain here.
More facts: the politics
Bryant’s research is impeccable. As a writer of military
historical fiction myself, I am absolutely in awe of the depth of her research
and the amount of detail she integrates into her plots. When it comes to the
politics of the Walcheren campaign she relies a lot on Jacqueline Reiter’s
book, ‘The Late Lord,’ which I reviewed a few weeks ago.
It’s a reasonable approach as Reiter’s book seems to be the definitive account.
She does, though, get caught up with Reiter’s interest in the way that Chatham
was treated after Walcheren. There was an Enquiry by the House of Commons
sitting as a committee and Chatham was, as the phrase goes, stitched up like a
kipper (allegedly).
Once everyone is safely back in England, Bryant carries on with
a view of the enquiry. Durrell is called as a witness, so we get to see things
close up. Unfortunately the way that Lord This was trying to get one over on
Lord That and that Mr Somebody was trying to do down What’s’isname requires
more than a casual interest in the politics of the period. Pop quiz: who was
the Prime Minister in 1810? If you don’t know (it was Spencer Perceval) then
this will not be your favourite part of the book. It’s one of those cases where
the history in historical fiction beats the fiction to a slow and painful
death.
Conclusion: read this book
Don’t let the political coda put you off. Bryant makes it as
interesting as it could be and there’s lots of fun with the characters we have
come to love at Walcheren as they try to get back to normal life – or as normal
as it could be in a country still at war.
There is still a young girl’s love to be won, reputations to
be made and battles ahead to fight.
Bryant is a lovely writer with a nice prose style and the
ability to fill a story with exciting incident. She blends real historical
detail with complete fabrication in a way that leaves you unable to see the
joins. It’s a book that kept me reading late into the night.
‘This Blighted Expedition’, despite its slightly damp-squib
ending, is a fantastic read. The ending isn’t an ending at all, of course
(always a potential problem with series books). To find out how everything
finally works out, I’ll be reading the next book to follow the life and times
of Captain Hugh Kelly and his wife as they sail on through the Napoleonic Wars.
A blog post about the 2nd Earl of Chatham and the book Jacqueline Reiter wrote about him.
I read an awful lot of books of historical non-fiction. The
occasional one is excellent. I read a fair number of
contemporary documents about the siege of Cawnpore for my book, Cawnpore, but honestly there was hardly
anything that wasn’t included in Andrew Ward’s astonishing Our Bones Are Scattered. It read like a novel too. In fact, I’d
recommend it over my own book but at more than 700 pages it’s maybe a bit heavy
for a holiday read.
Most of the historical stuff I labour
through, though, is beyond awful. I hate saying this, especially when I’ve met
some of the authors, but they really can’t write, which is sad seeing that
history is essentially about telling stories. (The clue is in the name.)
So let’s hear it for the amazing and
amusing Jacqueline Reiter (a clear case of nominative determinism if ever there
was one). This is a woman who writes so well that I even read (and mainly
enjoyed) her PhD thesis. I haven’t even read my wife’s PhD thesis. (It’s also
historical and, in fairness, I’ve read most of it in bits and she is also a
brilliant writer – possibly not unconnected to the fact that she didn’t train
in history.)
Jacqueline is an excellent speaker, a decent writer of short stories, and publishes an intermittent but stellar blog, but The Late Lord is (as far as I know) her only published book.
It is a biography of the 2nd
Earl of Chatham, the son of the Elder Pitt and the brother of the Younger.
I’ve met people born into a family of
over-achievers and it’s a terrible thing to happen to anyone. The poor guy
can’t make a speech or hold an opinion without somebody comparing it
unfavourably to his father or his brother. Painfully shy to start off with,
this drove him to become a virtual recluse, which meant everybody attacking him
as a stand-offish snob on top of everything else.
The
Earl should have hidden away in the country and bred horses, which seems
pretty well what he was put on the earth to do, but he had an enormous sense of
duty: to his country (which never appreciated him) and to his brother (who
knifed him in the back when it became politically convenient). Unable to star
in politics and unfitted for a professional career, he took what was
traditionally the role of the third son and tried to make a career in the army.
He was conscientious and personally quite brave (a key attribute for early
19th-century commanders), being wounded in action. His brother though, saw him
as more valuable as political cannon fodder than the traditional sort, so after
being wounded he wasn’t allowed to serve in action again until the Younger had
ended his political career. At this point, he was given command of a doomed
expedition to the Low Countries which was supposed to be a joint naval-military
operation. The venture failed spectacularly with the army blaming the navy, the
navy blaming the army and the politicians (who bore a significant amount of the
responsibility) blaming the most convenient scapegoat, which turned out to be
him. Unable to quite believe how completely he was being stitched up, he made a
totally inadequate defence and retired in public disgrace.
Failed politician and failed
general, the poor man’s main solace was his personal life until his wife went
mad and died after a long illness, leaving him distressed beyond measure. At this point the King (as far as I can see his only staunch
supporter in his life) made him governor of Gibraltar, in an attempt to give
him both an income (it goes without saying that he was broke) and a reason for
getting out of bed in the morning (which, as it happens, he very often didn’t
do, being a particular enthusiast for long lie-ins).
North View of Gibraltar from Spanish Lines: John Mace (1782)
He hated Gibraltar, but as with
almost everything else in his life, he persevered with a sense of duty and was a
solidly, if unspectacularly, good governor. The posting,
though, broke his health (he was already 65 when he arrived there) and he
returned to England after four years. For ten years he lived quietly with his
health continuing to deteriorate although, paradoxically, with the man himself
away from the public gaze his reputation began to recover. His funeral, after a
stroke in 1835, was, Reiter assures us, “in grand style” at Westminster
Abbey.
Reiter narrates the Earl’s life with
genuine sympathy and makes the politics of the early 19th century
much clearer than anybody else I’ve read. She doesn’t condescend to the
readers, but neither does she assume knowledge that most amateurs like me will
not possess. The book is indexed and annotated to within an inch of its life
(possibly more than the non-academic reader really wants) but it remains lively
and well written and a thoroughly enjoyable read. If only more history books
were written like this, more people would be interested in history.
The last (probably) of my posts inspired by the conference on “War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon” is a revival of a post that first appeared here in July last year. It’s about the fight for Hougoumont, virtually a battle within the larger battle of Waterloo. The first clash of troops in the battle took place at Hougoumont and fighting continued there right up until the French army broke at the end of the day. It is widely regarded as one of the most important strategic points of the battle with Wellington claiming that its defence was crucial to his success.
Hougoumont was the subject of Charles Esdaile’s presentation at the conference. Charles enjoys attacking peoples’ established ideas – he’s practically the definition of a “revisionist historian” – and he argued that Hougoumont, far from being the key to the battle, was a practically irrelevant sideshow. I can’t resist reposting my original piece on Hougoumont that made much the same argument more than a year ago.
If you want to see a very short video of the place that I made when I visited (before writing the article) it’s at https://youtu.be/V_LT31i1fjY
Hougoumont
Although Hougoumont lay some way ahead of the main British lines, it was not occupied as an advance position. It was seen as part of Wellington’s overall defensive strategy, protecting the west of his line or, as Wellington put it in his dispatch, because it “covered the return of that flank”.
Prior to the battle, Wellington had been convinced that Napoleon would swing round to the west, threatening the British supply lines that ran through to Ostend. So concerned was he that he left a substantial force to guard the supply lines against the attack that never came, reducing the number of men available to him at Waterloo. Wellington’s conviction that Napoleon would attempt to attack his right flank seems to have influenced the decision to occupy Hougoumont. It wasn’t a stupid idea: Napoleon often used flanking movements in battle. In this case, though, Wellington seems to attach more importance to Hougoumont than could really be justified. The British right was, as Wellington’s dispatch said, “thrown back to a ravine”, which already offered substantial protection. [Charles Esdaile pointed out that Wellington had also covered that flank with a considerable amount of artillery.] Also, there was quite a lot of woodland in that area and this would have impeded the advance of blocks of infantry moving in formation, as was required to engage effectively in early 19th century military conflicts. Not for nothing do we talk about “the field of battle”. Armies needed large open spaces to manoeuvre, so flanking attack on the West was unlikely to be a particular danger.
Nonetheless, Wellington had four companies of the Brigade of Guards occupy the chateau (probably around 400 men).
Hougoument was a substantial building – or, more realistically – complex of buildings. The photo below shows the farm as it is today and gives you some idea of the size of the place.
When the Guards arrived at Hougoumont (driving out a few French who they found exploring the place) it was dominated by the fortified castle, with a small tower, that stood in the centre of the complex, adjoining the chapel (the small white building that still stands there).
The photo above is taken from what were then formal gardens, beyond which was an orchard. From the point of view of the soldiers defending the place, the important thing is that this land was surrounded by a brick wall, which still stands.
During the night before the battle, the British troops did what they could to improve the defences. Loopholes were made in the walls and fire steps constructed. Charles Esdaile points out that there may well have been loopholes there already, as Hougoumont had featured in the War of the First Coalition in 1794, but the Coldstream Guards are supposed to have been ordered to make loopholes and I suspect they would have done so even if something remained from another battle 20 years earlier. Guards regiments are like that – they reckon soldiering done by other regiments is automatically inferior.
Since 1815 much of the wall has fallen down and been rebuilt and the “loopholes” we see today are 20th (or 21st) century additions designed to appeal to the increasing number of visitors to the site.
Loopholes in the garden walls.
One gate – the northern gate that was closest to the British lines – was left open, but the others were barricaded shut.
Between Hougoumont and the French lines there was a wood and there was concern that this could provide cover should the French attack. Early in the morning, about a thousand German troops were sent to reinforce the defenders, many of them taking up their positions in the wood and the orchard within the farm walls.
Although the troops were stood to from dawn, for hours nothing happened while Napoleon positioned his men. Not all of the French forces were ready by late morning, but Napoleon decided that he needed to start an attack. When, rather late in the morning, Napoleon finally opened his attack, he did not drive toward the British centre, but ordered an assault on Hougoumont.
The French assault was led by Napoleon’s brother, Jerome, who attacked with five and a half thousand men. The attack was almost certainly a feint, designed to draw Wellington’s forces from the centre to defend his right flank while Napoleon prepared his main assault.
The result should have been a foregone conclusion and, indeed, the French succeeded in driving the German troops out of the wood, but they then had to attack across the strip of open land to get to the garden wall. This area was well covered by British musket fire through the loopholes, while the French for unable to return any effective fire against soldiers in a well protected position.
[Since I wrote this, there has been new work done at Hougoumont tracing the location of all the musket balls in the area. This suggests that the French followed a path through the wood in their initial attack, which meant that they were bunched quite tightly together. This was probably a significant element in the failure of the assault. Had they advanced through the wood in skirmish order, they might have succeeded.]
What had started as a diversionary attack had now gained a momentum of its own. Frustrated by his inability to take the place defended by such a relatively small force, Jerome Bonaparte threw more and more troops into the fight, which became a separate conflict – effectively a battle within the wider battle of Waterloo.
Eventually the French forces took possession of the wood and of the orchard, but the British still held the farm buildings – two courtyards with the substantial Gardener’s House, a great barn, the chapel and, of course, the chateau itself.
The Gardener’s House
Despite their repeated efforts, the French were unable to enter the farm complex. They came under fire from the loopholes in the walls, from the windows of the houses and even from the roofs where British soldiers had stationed themselves to fire down on the enemy below.
French losses were terrible. The plaque below marks the point at which a French general died at the foot of the garden wall, very close to one of the main entrances the courtyard.
Closing the gates at Hougoumont
The north gate remained unbarricaded, allowing the evacuation of wounded troops towards the Allied lines. The fighting continued outside the farm too, and troops retreating from the French would use the north gate to gain the cover of the farm buildings when they were driven back. Eventually a small French force swung round past the worst of the fighting and attacked the farm from the north. They are supposed to have been led by one Sous Lieutenant Legros, known as L’Enfonceur, or ‘the smasher’ on account of his size and strength. It’s likely that this man was more myth than history, especially as he was supposed to have fought at La Haye Sainte as well. Certainly, though, some brave Frenchman did manage to force open the gate. About thirty to forty French troops forced their way into the courtyard and, with the rest of the French force close behind them, it looked as if Hougoumont would fall.
‘Closing the Gates at Hougoumont’ by Robert Gibb (painted 1903)
Ten of the defenders threw themselves against the gates and forced them closed. All the French soldiers who had forced their way into the courtyard were now trapped and every single one of them was killed except, so the story goes, for a drummer boy who was spared.
The incident was presented as crucial to the defence of Hougoumont (which it probably was) and to the outcome of the battle. This is because Wellington remained convinced that the defence of Hougoumont was a central part of his strategy and that its fall would precipitate an Allied defeat. As already noted, this is extremely unlikely. Hougoumont was a diversionary attack that had, by now, grown completely out of control. Nonetheless, the closing of the gates became one of the defining legends of Waterloo, celebrated to this day.
Memorial to the defenders of Hougoumont. The inscription, ‘Closing the Gates on War’ refers to the century of comparative peace in Europe that followed the battle
Even now, the north gate, though barred, was not barricaded, the defenders being anxious to keep their lines of communication with the main Allied force open. By one in the afternoon, the defenders had fought off three large-scale attacks and were running low on ammunition. An officer broke out of Hougoumont and found a Private Joseph Brewster of the Royal Waggon Train in charge of an ammunition cart near the British line. The lane leading to Hougoumont was now under heavy musketry fire from French skirmishers, but the waggon was galloped under enemy fire into Hougoumont, providing the ammunition needed to continue the defence.
The miracle of the chapel
The assault on Hougoumont was unusual for the French, in that it was not supported by artillery. The farm was screened from French artillery by the forest and, although some round shot did strike the buildings, there was little effective use of French artillery during the morning. The British, by contrast, were able to use artillery placed on the ridge to bombard French troops approaching Hougoumont, which was a significant factor in its defence.
In the afternoon the French did succeed in bringing howitzers up within range of the buildings. They started using carcass projectiles (early incendiary shells) and soon both the chateau itself and the great barn were on fire.
Wellington, observing the smoke and flames from the ridge, sent orders that the men were to stand firm.
‘I see that the fire has communicated from the hay stack to the roof of the chateau. You must however still keep your men in those parts to which the fire does not reach. Take care that no men are lost by the falling in of the roof, or floors. After they have fallen in occupy the walls inside of the garden; particularly if it should be possible for the enemy to pass through the embers in the inside of the house’.
The British had put many of their wounded in the shelter of the chateau and the adjacent chapel. Most of those in the chateau died and the flames were spreading to the chapel. There was a crucifix above the door of the chapel and the flames reached the foot of the crucifix, burning one of the legs. At this point the fire died and the chapel still stands. The men who had been sheltering there, too badly wounded to flee through the flames, were saved. It was hailed as a miracle, although a cynic might point out that there was little in the chapel to feed the flames.
The crucifix has been much restored over time, although the head, with its fine carving, remains the original. In 2011 it was stolen and remained missing until 2014 when it was found and restored again. It now hangs back in the spot where watched over the wounded in 1815.
Although all the significant buildings within the farm when now destroyed by fire, the British continued to resist and, despite further waves of French attacks (including one in which a dozen or so French infantrymen actually made it into the courtyard) Hougoumont held on.
Fighting at Hougoumont continued until the general retreat of the French with the arrival of the Prussians and the end of the battle. The Allied force defending Hougoumont, probably never exceeded three thousand troops, with another three thousand in close support, but by their stubborn defence, they exhausted the strength of no less than thirteen thousand French troops.
Did Hougoumont matter?
The importance of Hougoumont in strategic terms was almost certainly overestimated by Wellington. Napoleon had never seen it as a strategically important goal. He had no intention of attacking the British right flank and, in any case, he could simply have outflanked the farm had he really wanted to do so.
Tactically, Hougoumont may well have made a difference. The considerable number of French troops who ended up committed to this “battle within a battle” was not available for the main assaults, where they might have had a significant effect.
Hougoumont’s main importance, though, was in its contribution to the legend of Waterloo – the idea that a vastly outnumbered force of British soldiers was able, by their heroic resistance, to see off Napoleon and the French. This rather plays down the contribution of the Nassau and Hanoverian soldiers who defended the place alongside the British. It did, though, contribute to the myth of British military prowess that allowed Britain to ‘punch above its weight’ for a hundred years and, arguably, longer. Whether this was an entirely goods thing is for the reader to judge.
Sources
An excellent account of the defence of Hougoumont is available on the website of ‘Project Hougoumont’ which was set up initially as part of the project to restore the farm and which now seeks to knowledge of the battle and ongoing research on the history of the Waterloo. The web address is https://projecthougoumont.com
I also benefited hugely from my visit to the farm and from the museum and materials presented there.
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Like last week, this week’s blog is a result of my attendance at the recent conference on ‘War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon’ held at King’s College London. It’s basically a summary of the final presentation. That seems worth doing because it was a fun way to end two days of heavy historical analysis with a fascinating attempt to get inside the head of Napoleon by having his behaviour examined by a team of psychiatrists whose day job is treating American servicemen. It was presented by Dr Edward J Coss, who is a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
Napoleon being dead, Dr Coss decided that any diagnosis of his mental state should be based on the closest he could get to actual observation of the living subject, so he looked for things that Napoleon had written himself or statements made by witnesses who directly quoted the man. In this way he gathered a substantial corpus of what could be treated as primary source material on his subject. He then gave this mass of quotations to practising psychiatrists engaged in the treatment of American servicemen.
Coss was expecting to find symptoms of PTSD. Napoleon had been almost constantly engaged in warfare for 17 years. He was a general who (contrary to the way the English tend to think of him) often led from the front and was exposed to danger directly and saw the effects of warfare on his men for all that time. Coss stated that it’s rare for anybody engaged in conflict over a period of years not to suffer from PTSD, so this seemed the most obvious thing to look for.
To his surprise, none of the psychiatrists considered that there was any evidence of PTSD, but, in their professional view, Napoleon did show signs of other attitudes and behaviours which are nowadays classified as psychological illness.
The psychiatrists said they saw clear evidence of narcissism. This is a condition characterised by
a strong sense of self-importance (grandiosity)
fantasies of power, success, brilliance
the notion that the individual is special and not as other people
the need for excessive admiration
a sense of entitlement
the tendency to interpersonal exploitation
a lack of empathy
envy
arrogance
There were interesting illustrations of such behaviours cited. For example, at Jaffa Napoleon touched the bubos of soldiers suffering from plague. While some people see this as evidence of his trying to show sympathy with the dying men, the psychiatrists suggested that it was more likely (as Napoleon was not a notably sympathetic character) that he touched them to show that he could not die of plague like ordinary people – he was, indeed, special.
Napoleon at Jaffa
I must admit that I was not entirely convinced. Napoleon was the single most powerful man in the world, ruler (effectively dictator) of a huge empire. A sense of self-importance and, indeed, entitlement seems, in the circumstances, quite reasonable. As to the fantasies of power, it is difficult to see how any fantasy could exceed the reality of his position. On the other hand, his early behaviour in Corsica (where he was heavily involved in local politics and rather over-reached himself as a very young man) did suggest that he had a sense of self-importance even then.
It does seem that Napoleon was big on admiration. He did like a certain amount of bowing and scraping, and Kamil Szadkowski’s paper on his court (officially established in 1804) gave a lot of fascinating detail on just how incredibly expensive and elaborate it was. But the court was part of a political strategy designed to establish his rule in France as being as legitimate as that of other rulers. Lacking the “divine right” of hereditary rulers, it was essential that the panoply of state was at least as impressive as that of other countries. It’s likely that Napoleon enjoyed the admiration (who wouldn’t?) but it’s not necessarily a symptom of a psychological pathology.
Self-important? Me?
I was also sceptical at the suggestion that Napoleon lacked empathy. It is said that he never showed real sympathy for those who were injured under his command. It is, of course, impossible to know for sure but the suggestion that he lacked the ability to form wholehearted emotional relationships is dubious. Even if you discount his relationship with Josephine (which was, at best, erratic) as a young man he did fall desperately (and rather pathetically) in love on more than one occasion. The suggestion that he was always cold and distant does not fit with many of the details of his life.
Much as, contrarian that I am, I was happy to take issue with individual pointers toward narcissism, eventually I was worn down by the sheer quantity of evidence. In any case, the psychiatric diagnosis relies on positive indicators of only five of these characteristics, and the psychiatrists had no trouble in agreeing that he was, indeed, a narcissist. Interestingly, according to Coss, narcissists are considered by psychiatrists to be “inwardly fragile”. Certainly Napoleon was prone to attacks of fury when crossed, often alternating with periods of sulking. He also famously attempted suicide on two occasions. It seems quite possible that under the bluster, the arrogance, and the spectacular displays of power, there was a sad little boy who had never had a good relationship with his father and who really, really needed his mum.
Napoleon was plagued with depression on Elba
But that was not all. We all know that Napoleon was moody and the psychiatrists volunteered the suggestion that he was clinically depressed – or perhaps bipolar. There was also a suspicion that by the end of his rule he may have been suffering a degree of brain damage. He twice injured his head falling from horses, on one occasion having a brief loss of consciousness. Nowadays he would have been encouraged to take it easy for a while, but in those days the suggestion that you “get back on the horse” was interpreted pretty literally. It is possible that some of his behaviour was the result of concussion-induced brain damage.
For me, the least surprising finding was the suggestion that Napoleon was a sociopath. Given that sociopathy is often linked with high performance in a corporate culture (so the incidence of sociopathy in CEOs is often quoted as being about 20%), I would be quite surprised if Napoleon had not had a sociopathic personality.
If the French army had had psychiatrists back in the day, could Napoleon have been treated? Well, brain scans could have looked for evidence of neurological damage, although as nobody did anything about it the time it’s unlikely that any effective treatment could have been given years later. The depression might have responded to drug treatment, but narcissism and sociopathy, according to the psychiatrists involved in the study, are almost impossible to treat.
It was a hugely entertaining presentation and may well give us a better understanding of Napoleon’s mind, but does it help us understand his rule? Honestly, I suspect not – except in so far that it reminds us that underneath that famous bicorn hat was a real person who had his personal strengths and weaknesses, his ups and his downs. By the time of Waterloo, he was quite sick. (He may well have picked up an illness during his Egyptian campaign that was never to entirely leave him. He is widely believed to have been suffering from piles at Waterloo and, whether or not the psychiatric diagnosis is accurate, he certainly seems to have had emotional issues by the end of his rule.) He was, it is fair to say, not at his best. When people ask why, for example, he allowed the cavalry to charge without close infantry support, we should consider the possibility that he was just having a really bad day.
Picture credits
Napoleon abdicated in Fontainebleau, 4 April 1814 by Paul Delaroche (1845)
Napoleon at Jaffa is a detail from Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa by Antoine-Jean Gros (1804) Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1806) Napoleon on Elba is an anonymous painting from the early 19th century
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My interest in the Napoleonic era stems from the research that I’ve done for my books about James Burke. Burke was real person and although most of his adventures are fictional a lot of research goes into making the backgrounds authentic. Eventually it gets to the point where I spent more time writing stuff like this than I do writing fiction. (I am working on a non-fiction account of the background to Waterloo, if anyone knows a publisher who might want it.) Nobody pays me for writing these blog posts, although I do now accept donations if anybody wants to buy me a coffee. What I would really appreciate, though, is if you bought one of books. They are all available on Kindle and cost £2.99 or less.
I’m returning to a favourite theme of mine – that the events of 1815 have had a direct impact on the world of today, though not necessarily in the way that many people think. This week’s ramblings were inspired by lectures at the conference on ‘War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon’, particularly those by Eamonn O’Keeffe, Joseph Cozens, and Robert Poole.
The French Wars continued for over 20 years and are often said to mark the start of the modern concept of “total war”. The wars impacted across society, with the militarisation of much of the economy. In some areas, a phenomenally high proportion of men joined the volunteers: in Lancashire it was 32%. Even women’s fashion took on a military flavour, with some women dressing in clothes that reflected the uniforms of the regiments that they (through family or geographical links) were associated with.
In many ways, the war had an increased social impact with demobilisation. Suddenly 300,000 soldiers and sailors returned to civilian life. While, for the first time, some of them were paid pensions, money was only given to those who had served 14 years or more or been injured. Three quarters of demobilised soldiers got no pension and for most of those who did the amount was not sufficient to live on.
The end of the war marked the beginning of a period of “General Distress”. The economy was staggering under the weight of war debt. Food prices were high, shortages exacerbated by exceptionally poor harvests in 1816. Wages were low and many of those discharged from the forces were unable to find employment.
Unsurprisingly, the years following the war saw popular unrest and protests, especially in the northern industrial towns which were particularly hard hit by the recession and which were not properly represented in Parliament.
The period saw what Cozens called “the militarisation of protest”. Marchers organised in columns and were often drilled in their marching by ex-soldiers. Demonstrators marched behind bands, often ex-military men. They marched with banners which had often been ceremonially presented by women supporters, modelling the presentation of military colours and, as with military colours, the marchers were urged to defend the banners. Police and military units breaking up demonstrations (as at Peterloo) would often target the banners, trying to seize them just as they would try to capture the enemy’s colours in war.
Parliamentary elections might not have involved many actual voters, but they did involve the general population with marches and rallies, often taking on the character of holidays. Processions (with banners) were often led by military bands. In theory, serving soldiers could not lead political processions, but this ban was widely ignored.
Bedford Town Election (1832); The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum, Bedford
According to O’Keeffe’s presentation, this increased militarisation of political events was accompanied by an increased use of military language in campaign rhetoric: opponents would be put “under siege”, there would be “volleys” of arguments against them. O’Keeffe says that this language was seen occasionally in the 18th century, but became commonplace after 1815.
The links with today’s political rhetoric are obvious and often the subject of negative comment in the press and elsewhere. For example, here’s the Guardian after Joe Cox was killed in 2016:
On the morning of the referendum result, Farage celebrated a victory that had been won “without a single bullet being fired”. When Thomas Mair, Cox’s alleged killer, appeared in court on Saturday 18 June, he gave his name as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain”. Not two weeks later, the term “traitor” was being used by some of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters as a standard term of abuse for anyone deemed disloyal. It appeared on the front page of the Morning Star, and in endless tweets and Facebook posts…
Meanwhile, as the Conservative party has remade itself, the Daily Mail and the Sun have returned to business as usual: Traitor Gove, Knifing of Boris, First Blood to Theresa. In the Mail on Sunday, Rachel Johnson wrote of Michael Gove as a “Westminster suicide bomber”, and professed her hope that she would again dine with his family “when the bleeding bodies of the fallen are removed from the smoking battlefield of this campaign”. The Guardian and Observer were susceptible, too. On a Friday, a prominent headline in the comment pages referred to the “reek of death” hanging over the Labour party; two days later, another referred to its “stench”.
Nor have MPs themselves proved immune. One Conservative, Ben Wallace, said that Gove was “Theon Greyjoy or will be by the time I am finished with him” – a reference to a Game of Thrones character who is castrated.
At the other end of the political spectrum the Daily Telegraph writes:
Three new intellectual magazines backed will appear on news-stands this autumn as the right and centre-left engage in a battle [stress added] of ideas.
There are many criticisms that this type of language coarsens political debate and may lead to violence. I have seen similar arguments in American academic publications, but British commentators frequently suggest that this is a particularly British (or English) concern. The oppositional style of British politics is often compared adversely with the approach taken in other European countries with the horse-shoe-shaped architecture of their parliaments and their predisposition to coalition government.
Of course, other European nations were also militarised during the Napoleonic wars, although it could be argued that their experience was different from that of the British because
except for the French, all the other nations had periods of peace while Britain had only the short Peace of Amiens and
other nations had to adapt to the reality of occupation, while the British were able to view war in terms of absolute victory.
Cozens’ paper did discuss attitudes to demobilised soldiers and argued that public attitudes were very ambivalent. Soldiers were simultaneously seen as brave, loyal and organised yet, at least potentially, as criminal, subversive itinerants. To the extent that they were viewed positively, the militarisation of politics makes sense and may well have been more pronounced in Britain than elsewhere in Europe.
So can we blame the Napoleonic wars for the violence of the fault lines that have appeared in British political life 200 years later? It’s not at all clear that we can. O’Keeffe’s research does not allow a direct comparison of the post-war picture with the language prior to the conflict. There is also no evidence that the problem (if it is a problem) is more marked in Britain than elsewhere. Indeed, there seems more academic research supporting the idea that political discourse is underpinned by the language of war in the United States than in Britain. On the other hand, would be dangerous to dismiss the argument altogether. O’Keeffe’s research does definitely show a very high level of militaristic imagery in the years following the Napoleonic wars. Peterloo, in particular, was held at the time to threaten rebellion simply because of the use of banners, drilling, and marching in columns.
As we start new political campaigns, denouncing opponents as traitors and ordering our supporters to target vulnerable opponents, we can see what might be the last traces of the language of the politics of 1816. And as protesters march under banners, albeit to steel bands rather than military music, we are seeing a tradition that goes at least that far back.
Does the language and style of modern politics and street activism really originate in the chaos of the General Disaster of 1815-1819? I honestly don’t know, but it’s a fascinating thought and one that I hope academics like O’Keeffe will turn their minds to.
Acknowledgements
I’m very grateful to the organisers of the ‘War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon’ conference at King’s College, London, and especially to Eamonn O’Keeffe for his paper: “An Evil of Long Standing”: martial musicians, partisan performances and the militarization of British electoral spectacle. Details of his work are available at https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/eamonn-okeeffe
A word from our sponsor
My interest in the Napoleonic era stems from the research that I’ve done for my books about James Burke. Burke was real person and although most of his adventures are fictional a lot of research goes into making the backgrounds authentic. Eventually it gets to the point where I spent more time writing stuff like this than I do writing fiction. (I am working on a non-fiction account of the background to Waterloo, if anyone knows a publisher who might want it.) Nobody pays me for writing these blog posts, although I do now accept donations if anybody wants to buy me a coffee. What I would really appreciate, though, is if you bought one of books. They are all available on Kindle and cost £2.99 or less.
The Battle of the Nile was on 1 August 1798. Nobody seems to remember it these days – it’s all about Trafalgar. Back in the day, though, the battle of the Nile was regarded as quite a big deal. Look at this commemorative arch at Greenwich and you can see one of the figures holding a scroll saying “Trafalgar” on the left while a cherub on the right holds another saying “The Nile” and “Copenhagen”.
In many ways, I think that the Battle of the Nile was a more impressive victory than Trafalgar. I’ll go into details of battle and why it was important later, but first I should explain the background to the engagement.
In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt. He had distinguished himself by his generalship during his invasion of Italy and was a rising star in France. There are suggestions that the Directory (the rulers of France at the time) wanted him out of the way. He was becoming a little bit too popular and they may well have been worried that he could one day challenge their rule, as, indeed, he did only a year later.
Was the invasion of Egypt just a sideshow? Or would its possession by France allow them to move troops overland into India and threaten British possessions there? We know that Napoleon looked seriously at the idea of building a canal very close to where the Suez Canal was eventually constructed, but in the end his plans were thwarted, so we will never know whether an overland invasion of India was a serious prospect or not.
Victory at the Battle of the Pyramids gave Napoleon control of Egypt
Egypt had fallen very quickly to the French attack, but if it was to be used as a jumping off point for further conquest it was essential that France maintain its supply lines across the Mediterranean. The British had a substantial naval presence in the Med, but Napoleon had assembled a considerable fleet to transport his army and to maintain communications after the conquest. This was lying off the northern coast of Egypt, not actually at the Nile at all but in the Bay of Aboukir, near Alexandria.
Nobody knows exactly why the fleet was lying at anchor in a position where it was at risk from an attack from the sea where it would be pinned between the land and any hostile force. After the French defeat everybody blamed everybody else for this strategic error. One possible explanation is that Napoleon had ordered the fleet to sea but that the message had somehow never reached it, and this is the version that I use in Burke and the Bedouin. We’ll never know, of course, but if the British had had an agent in Egypt, then stopping that message getting through would have been a very useful way for him to spend his time.
There was a roughly equal number of ships in both fleets, but the French ships carried more guns. In 18th-century naval battles the number of guns that could be brought to bear was usually decisive and the French fleet carried 1196 guns against only 1012 for the British.
The British sailed into the bay intending a conventional attack. Each British ship would line up against a French vessel and both sides would hammer into each other with their cannon until the loser was no longer able to fight effectively. However, as the British approach the French line they realised that the French vessels were swinging at anchor. Clearly there was enough water between the line of French vessels and the coast for them to swing without grounding and, the British reasoned, it must therefore be possible for their ships to sail down the narrow channel. The British split into two columns and each French vessel found itself engaged on both sides. With the wind making it impossible for the French to make out to sea, they were stuck in line as the British worked their way along sinking ship after ship.
The most dramatic French loss was their flagship L’Orient, which carried an astonishing 120 guns. Fire on deck spread to the magazine magazine which exploded and the ship very quickly sank. While nowadays most of us have forgotten the Battle of the Nile many will remember the boy who “stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled”, a poem that commemorated the sinking of L’Orient. The boy was the captain’s son who, the captain being dead and unable to tell him to abandon ship, remained at his post and became one of over a thousand men to die in the explosion.
When it was all over, of 13 French ships of the line and four frigates, three were destroyed and nine captured by the British. British casualties were 895 while the French lost 5,225 dead and 3,105 captured.
The French defeat left them with no way of resupplying or reinforcing their army in Egypt. The French remained stuck in the country, despite attempts to fight their way out through Syria, until they surrendered to an Anglo-Ottoman force in 1800. By then, of course, Napoleon had abandoned them, returning to France in August 1799.
Nelson’s remarkable victory left the British firmly in control of the Mediterranean and prevented the French from using Egypt as a jumping off point for further aggression in the Middle East or towards India. It deserves to be remembered.
‘Twas on the ninth day of August in the year ninety-eight
We’ll sing the praise of Nelson and the bold British fleet.
Traditional sea song.
Burke and the Bedouin
Did a British spy stop the messenger carrying the orders to the French fleet to set to sea and thus make Nelson’s victory possible? We’ll never know, but the idea that the messenger was intercepted is one that historians consider quite credible.
Burke’s escapades in Egypt are a straightforward adventure story, featuring a beautiful woman (of course), desperate rides across the desert, evil Turks, and dastardly Frenchmen. It’s a lot of fun but there’s some solid history about the French landings, the Battle of the Pyramids and, of course, the Battle of the Nile.
Burke and the Bedouin is available from Amazon in both paperback and e-book format, and in the USA from Simon & Schuster.
Picture credits
The Battle of the Pyramids, by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, 1808. Public domain Battle of the Nile, August 1st 1798 at 10 pm, by Thomas Luny. Public domain
Napoleon at Jaffa
Self-important? Me?
Napoleon was plagued with depression on Elba
