15 August: Boreham on Napoleon Bonaparte

The Fall of the Mighty
We mark tomorrow the anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte. He died in 1821. It seems strange to reflect that although, at the age of 52, the great man passed away in early May it was not until well into July that the news was announced in England. And, even then, nobody believed it. He had died so often. He had been killed at the battle of the Dneiper; he had been twice drowned; he had been lost in the snows during the retreat from Moscow; and he had more than once committed suicide. On that May day, however, he really breathed his last; and Lockhart, the biographer of Scott, declared that "nations yet to come will look back upon Napoleon's history as to some grand and supernatural romance! The fiery energy of his youthful career, and the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and, when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed away into the darkness of oblivion, history will still inscribe one mighty era with the majestic name of Napoleon." Yet, strangely enough, although more than a century now intervenes between his time and our own, our literature is still destitute of any really convincing sketch of his remarkable personality. Artists have done far more than biographers to impress his individuality upon our minds. It is true, of course, that many books have been written. Lockhart, Lord Rosebery, Dr. Holland Rose and a multitude of others have swollen the volume of Napoleonic literature; but, in each case, we feel, on laying aside the book, that we have been watching the march of events rather than enjoying the society of the man. We have history, philosophy and psychology in abundance; but a flesh-and-blood biography of Napoleon has yet to be written. When that classic appears—if it ever does appear—we shall be reminded, that Napoleon was a man of extraordinary strength; but we shall be shown, too, that he was a man of corresponding frailties. Of the tale of his strength we are already tired; the story has been told so often. It will be much more novel, and therefore much more interesting, to review his weaknesses.

Assumption Of Omnipotence
It is a serious weakness to be ignorant of the existence of weakness. Every strong man should know the limits of his own strength. Napoleon never even realised that his strength had limits; it certainly never occurred to him to ask what those limits were. The prodigious vigour of his physical and intellectual equipment tempted him to attribute to himself potentialities that no mortal could possibly possess. "In his prime," as one writer points out, "he was incapable of fatigue. He could fight for five consecutive days without taking off his boots or closing his eyes. He could even post from Poland to Paris, summon a council at once, preside at it for eight or ten hours with his usual concentration and acuteness, till all the rest were utterly worn out. He could work for eighteen hours at a stretch and never show a sign of weariness or of impaired elasticity." This is very wonderful; but facts are facts. And the essential fact is that, although a man may pass through such exhausting ordeals without a sign of weariness, he cannot pass through them without the weariness itself. Beneath the elusive and treacherous appearance of freshness, a man may be thoroughly fagged. Nature allows no man to exceed her speed limit with impunity. Napoleon committed that offence and he paid the inevitable penalty. He lost Waterloo, and, in losing Waterloo, he lost everything. On that memorable June morning, all the conditions seemed to favour him. His troops formed a compact and united whole, whilst Wellington's host comprised a medley of heterogeneous and incongruous elements. At noon he himself said that he had the British entirely at his mercy, and at 3 o'clock he despatched a courier to Paris to say that victory was absolutely certain. Why, then, did the day end as it did? Lord Roberts admits that, of the two generals, Napoleon was incomparably the more brilliant. Yet the fateful day that decided the destinies of Europe found Napoleon hesitant, irresolute, vacillating. The Emperor was never so agitated: the Duke was never so calm. Napoleon perpetrated blunder after blunder: the Duke seemed omniscient and infallible. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Napoleon's powers were prematurely spent; he had imposed upon the generosity of Nature, and, on the most crucial day of his entire career, Nature took her revenge.

Dissipation Of Energy
The same failure to recognise his limitations disfigured his military administration. Among British writers, nobody has written more sympathetically and admiringly of Napoleon than has Dr. Holland Rose. But even Dr. Rose is compelled to acknowledge weakness at this vital point. "It is extraordinary," he says "that so keen and historical a student as Napoleon should not have seen that he could not figure both as Alexander the Great and as Charlemagne. The domination of Europe and the conquest of the East were absolutely incompatible tasks. That was the outstanding lesson of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. To war against the British in Bengal and Ohio, while combating Frederick the Great in Germany, was far beyond the capacity of Louis. Napoleon, being Napoleon, could well attempt far more; but it was madness for him to seek to hold down Madrid, Naples, Berlin, and to cow Austria and Russia, while also arranging for the partition of Turkey and the conquest of India. His policy could not be both European and Oriental." Dr. Rose goes on to show that great empires have been built by a policy of concentration. "A wise economy of effort has," he declares, "made the fortune of the British race, whereas Powers like France and Spain, whose position embroiled them in European affairs, have been exhausted by the double effort of dominating the Continent and developing new lands." It is notorious that people who attempt to do everything usually overlook the one thing that is really indispensable to them. That melancholy fate overtook Napoleon.

The Moral Dynamic
The historian of Napoleon—when that tardy official at length appears—will be compelled to confess that, in several important respects, the genius of his hero was astonishingly lopsided. The surface of the earth consists of land and of water—mainly water. Incredibly enough, Napoleon only saw the land. It never seems to have entered his head that the water might overwhelm all his terrestrial plans. If, instead of spending his time in building up vast armies, he had devoted some small fragment of his energies to the construction of a powerful navy, the chronicles of the Nineteenth Century might have had a very different tale to tell. It was by a maritime Power that his dominion was broken at the last. Trafalgar shattered all his dreams. Macaulay points out that the narrowest strait was to Napoleon what it was of old believed that a running stream was to the sorceries of a witch. "While his army entered every metropolis from Moscow to Lisbon, the English fleets blockaded every port from Dantzic to Trieste." Napoleon never recognised the fact that whilst, on land, marble pillars and triumphal arches were being erected to perpetuate the splendour of his conquests, developments at sea were all the time threatening to lay his continental glory in the dust. These are faults, and serious faults. Perhaps, to a more penetrating eye, they are overshadowed by others, still more grave. For the historian, to discharge his duty thoroughly, will find himself under the necessity of probing the motives, as well as recording the actions, of Napoleon. And when we set ourselves to investigate those motives, we find ourselves fingering a singularly tangled skein. For what, after all, was the master-passion that drove this man ruthlessly, restlessly on? Was it love of party? He cared nothing for monarchialism or republicanism. Setting out upon his career at the very moment at which the French Revolution was taking shape, he had perforce, to choose. He sided with the populace. "Had I been a general," he observed, cynically, "I might have adhered to the King; being but a subaltern, I joined the patriots!" No tinge of principle moved him to his choice. Was he actuated by love of country? There is no evidence to show that he even cared for France. The nation was his tool, and a particularly useful one. Napoleon's supreme passion was—Napoleon. Yet, recognising that basic and fundamental fact, it is impossible to review his record without being once more impressed by the magnetic personality, the overwhelming greatness and the dominating energy of one of the most commanding figures in the entire pageant of human history.

F W Boreham

Image: Napoleon Bonaparte