How the French Won Waterloo - or Think They Did

by Stephen Clarke

  Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away in the South Atlantic, there is a similar plan to turn the island of Saint Helena into a kind of exiled Parc Napoléon. France owns 17 hectares of land on the British island. These French properties cover three locations: The Briars (the garden pavilion where Napoleon spent his first few weeks of exile on the island in 1815), the land around Napoleon’s last residence at Longwood, and his original grave – his body was of course later repatriated to France. Longwood and the grave site were bought for the French nation by Emperor Napoléon III in 1857, while The Briars was gifted to France in 1959 by the English family that had owned it since 1815. The original grave, by the way, was just a square slab of stone on a lawn, but has since been fenced off to prevent Bonapartists prostrating themselves and sobbing loud enough to startle the seagulls.

  Recently, Longwood has been renovated by the French at a cost of some 2.3 million euros, 1.5 million of which came from 2,500 private and corporate donors, and the rest from the French state. This sizeable sum did not cover the restoration of the furniture, and over thirty pieces were sent back to France’s national workshops to be refurbished before their return to Longwood.

  This costly renovation of Napoleon’s prison island is part of a Bonapartist masterplan, starting with a grande inauguration of the new-look Longwood on 15 October 2015 (the bicentenary of Napoleon’s arrival on Saint Helena), followed by a series of visits throughout 2016 by French groups, and a grand tour of the island by the International Napoleonic Society in 2017, with the excitement coming to a climax on the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death on 5 May 2021.

  Meanwhile, there has been some harsh French criticism of the Brits for not playing their part in this bonanza of Napoleonic activity on Saint Helena. In 2014 L’Histoire magazine reproached the islanders for their ‘insufficient hospitality: just 40-odd hotel rooms and six restaurants, all of poor standard’. Usually, of course, Bonapartists criticise les Anglais for their rampant commercialism, but when it comes to glorifying Napoleon, commercialism is clearly acceptable.

  The French memorial ceremony on Saint Helena in May 2021 is going to be a major event. No doubt French politicians will be flocking to pay their respects in front of the cameras, praying that they can scoop up a few crumbs of Napoleonic gloire for themselves. And we can be sure that the island will be echoing to the Bonapartists’ cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ even as they commemorate his death.

  By then, a five-star Hotel Napoleon, a Longwood Luncheonette and a Bonaparte Brasserie had better be ready on Saint Helena, or there will be some serious Anglais-bashing on the menu. Because this will be the modern Bonapartists’ great moment, the focus of all their energy for at least the past century. They are currently bringing Napoleonic nostalgia to a climax, whipping re-enactors and auction-goers to new heights of hysteria, spreading the Bonaparte gospel as far as Asia, and attracting investors for his theme park from all over the world. Napoleon is as recognisable an icon today as he ever was, and is well on his way to being even bigger than Mickey Mouse. So the threat is very real: if les Anglais don’t show enough respect to l’Empereur on the bicentenary of his entry into immortality, his worshippers might just annex the whole island and declare it the capital of a new Napoleonic empire …

  Napoleon the modern military dictator. With one 90-degree twist of the hat in 1801, he created an instantly recognisable image. His trademark black ‘bicorne’ hats, worn with the points to the side, were famous throughout Europe – and still are.

  However, when Napoleon had himself painted by Ingres in 1806 (left), he made a political mistake. His emperor’s robes alienated him from his core supporters – and especially his fellow soldiers. Thereafter, he always reverted to the black hat and uniform in official portraits.

  Napoleon was idolised by his soldiers, and was nicknamed ‘the little corporal’ by veterans – not because of his size but because of his youth and courage. Above: Napoleon’s favourite gesture to his men – the pinch on the ear.

  When Napoleon abdicated for the first time in April 1814, he gave a moving farewell speech that had his battle-hardened men in tears. The sentimental scene is re-enacted every year at the Château de Fontainebleau.

  His hat off, his boots dirty, Napoleon contemplates defeat in 1814. This picture was painted by Paul Delaroche in 1840, the year Napoleon’s remains were returned to France. It sealed his popular status as a martyred hero.

  A less sympathetic British image. Napoleon, guided by the Devil and Death, has returned to power and is planning ‘more horrors’. The cartoon was published by Thomas Rowlandson on 16 April 1815, almost exactly two months before Waterloo.

  The marshals who are lambasted by Bonapartists for disobeying Napoleon’s orders. The impetuous Ney, . . . the inefficient Soult and the absentee Grouchy.

  . . . the inefficient Soult . . .

  . . . and the absentee Grouchy.

  A very French view of Waterloo, Napoleon and his soon-to-be tragic heroes.

  The key moment of the battle for Bonapartists: General Cambronne says ‘merde’ to the English. Victor Hugo claimed that this act won the day for France.

  The ‘sunken lane’ that broke the great French cavalry charge at Waterloo was in fact a legend created by Victor Hugo.

  The victors, Blücher and Wellington, meet after Waterloo. According to Bonapartist historians it was an anticlimax as neither spoke the other’s language.

  Napoleon sails into exile, watched by the men who were to accompany him to Saint Helena. Painted in 1880 by William Orchardson, it shows that Napoleon’s legend was already established in Britain.

  When Napoleon’s remains arrived in Paris in 1840, about one million people lined the streets of Paris – in temperatures of minus ten degrees Centigrade. His golden chariot, pulled by 24 horses, and the reverential military escort quashed all notions that Napoleon Bonaparte was anything other than a victorious hero.

  In 1898, Napoleon gets top billing on the posters for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which toured America and Europe and was seen by millions. It was the pre-cinema equivalent of achieving Hollywood superstardom.

  APPENDIX 1

  Napoleon’s verbal salvoes

  Rather like a French Shakespeare, Napoleon spent much of his life producing quotable quotes – the difference between the two men being that most of Napoleon’s were about himself.

  Here are a few Napoleonic sayings, not used elsewhere in the book, that give an insight into the Empereur’s inner workings.

  ‘This battle [Waterloo] was against the interests of his [Wellington’s] nation and the allies’ overall war plan; it violated all the rules of war … It was not in England’s interests … to expose itself so frivolously to a murderous struggle that could have cost it its only army and its purest blood.’

  ‘You English will weep that you won Waterloo! In the end, posterity, well-informed people, genuine statesmen and genuinely good men will bitterly regret that I did not succeed in all my undertakings.’

  ‘Europe will soon be weeping over the loss of balance to which my French empire was absolutely necessary. It is in great danger. At any moment, it may be flooded with Cossacks and Tartars.’

  ‘Every nation is the same. When you give them golden chains, they don’t dislike servitude.’

  ‘Good politics is making people believe that they are free.’

  ‘What I am striving for is greatness. Great things are always beautiful.’

  ‘Coldness is the best quality for a man who is destined to command.’

  ‘The cannon killed feudalism. Ink will kill modern society.’

  ‘I am more frightened of three newspapers than of 100,000 bayonets.’

  ‘Peace is a meaningless word. What we want is glorious peace.’

  ‘Trade brings men together, everything that brings men together binds them, so trade is essentially harmful to authority.’

  ‘For one woman who inspires us to do good, there are a hundred who make us behave like idiots.�
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  ‘There is one thing that isn’t French – that a woman can do what she wants.’

  ‘Our ridiculous failing as a country is that the greatest enemy of our success and our glory is ourselves.’

  ‘It is in the French character to exaggerate, to complain and to distort everything when one is unhappy.’

  ‘You can stop when you are on the way up, but not on the way down.’

  ‘Death is nothing, but to die beaten and without glory is to die every day.’

  APPENDIX 2

  Contemporary views of Waterloo

  Part of Napoleon’s speech to his soldiers on 15 June 1815, reminding them of the good old days (the text was printed and widely distributed in Belgium before the battle):

  Soldiers! These same Prussians who are so arrogant today were three to one against you at Jena [in Germany, in 1806], six to one at Montmirail [in France, in 1814].

  Those among you who were prisoners in England can tell their comrades what frightful torments they suffered on board the English hulks.

  The Saxons, Belgians, Hanoverians, and the soldiers of the Rhine Confederation are sad to be forced to serve the cause of princes who are enemies of justice and people’s rights. They know that this coalition is insatiable. After devouring twelve million Italians, a million Saxons and six million Belgians, it will devour all the smaller states of Germany.

  Madmen! One moment of prosperity has blinded them. The oppression and humiliation of the French people is beyond their capability. If they enter into France it will be to find a grave there!

  Soldiers, we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, dangers to face; but with steadfastness, victory will be ours. The rights, the honour and the happiness of our homeland will be won back.

  Excerpts from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair (published in 1847–8), showing how rumours of what was going on in Waterloo reached Brussels:

  All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden. All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman’s mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still.

  […]

  Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos’s [servant] Isidor went from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-houses round about the Parc, where the English were congregated, and there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master’s information. Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of the Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the campaign. […] It was agreed on all hands that Prussians and British would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering army.

  These opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke of Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the advance of which had been utterly crushed the night before.

  “Crushed, psha!” said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout at breakfast-time. “The Duke has gone to beat the Emperor as he has beaten all his generals before.”

  “His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,” Jos’s informant replied. “I had it from his own maitre d’hotel. Milor Duc de Richemont’s people are packing up everything. His Grace has fled already, and the Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the King of France at Ostend.”

  “The King of France is at Ghent, fellow,” replied Jos, affecting incredulity.

  “He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from Ostend. The Duc de Berri [Louis XVIII’s nephew] is taken prisoner. Those who wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under water?”

  “Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force Boney can bring into the field,” Mr. Sedley objected; “the Austrians and the Russians are on their march. He must, he shall be crushed,” Jos said, slapping his hand on the table.

  “The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took their army and kingdom in a week. They were six to one at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep. The Austrian army is coming, but with the Empress and the King of Rome [Napoleon’s wife and son] at its head; and the Russians, bah! the Russians will withdraw. No quarter is to be given to the English, on account of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous pontoons. Look here, here it is in black and white. Here’s the proclamation of his Majesty the Emperor and King,” said the now declared partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master’s face, and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil.

  Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably disturbed in mind.

  Napoleon’s reaction after Waterloo

  After the defeat, denial set in straight away. Here are some excerpts from Napoleon’s official report, the Bulletin de l’Armée, written on 20 June, as he was fleeing towards Paris. Note that he calls Waterloo ‘the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean’.

  He begins with some triumphalism over his success at Ligny:

  At 7.30, we had captured forty cannons, many carriages, flags and prisoners, and the enemy was looking to save itself in hasty retreat. At ten o’clock, the battle was over, and we were masters of the battlefield.

  General Lützow had been captured. Prisoners assured us that Fieldmarshal Blücher had been wounded. The elite of the Prussian army had been destroyed. Its losses cannot have been less than 15,000; ours were only 3,000 killed or wounded.

  […]

  At 3 p.m. [on 18 June], the Emperor [Napoleon often referred to himself in his reports in the third person] decided to attack via the village of Mont-Saint-Jean, and thereby win a decisive victory; but thanks to an impatience that is very common in our military annals, and which has so often proved fatal to us, the reserve cavalry, seeing the English retreat to shelter from our artillery, which had caused them considerable damage, moved to the ridge at Mont-Saint-Jean and charged the infantry. This movement, if it had been executed at the right time, and supported, would have won the day, but it was carried out in isolation and, before matters came to a close on the right, became fatal.

  […]

  There, for three hours, several charges overran English squares and won us six infantry flags, but these gains were outweighed by the losses incurred by our cavalry from grapeshot and musket volleys.

  [Even so, the French attacks began to take effect and, in mid-afternoon …]

  The battle was won; we were occupying all the positions that the enemy had occupied at the start of the battle; because our cavalry had been engaged too soon and wrongly, we could not hope for a more decisive victory, but Marshal Grouchy, having assessed the movement of the Prussian army, was pursuing them, thereby assuring us of a great victory the following day. After eight hours of firing and infantry and cavalry charges, the whole army was able to look with satisfaction upon a battle won and the battlefield in our possession.

  [Then, however, something inexplicable happened. The advance of the Moyenne Garde was met with an unexpected attack from the flank and …]

  The nearby regiments, who saw a few soldiers of the Garde retreating, thought that they were from the Vieille Garde, and weakened:
shouts of ‘all is lost, the Garde has been pushed back!’ were heard. Some soldiers claim that there were agitators present, who shouted ‘every man for himself!’ Whether this is true or not, panic and terror instantly spread across the battlefield. Men fled in total disorder along our communication lines. Soldiers, artillerymen, ammunition carriers were trying to advance; even the Vieille Garde, who were in reserve, were swept away.

  In an instant, the army was a confused mass, all its elements mixed up, and it was impossible to re-form a fighting force. Darkness prevented us from rallying the troops and showing them that they were mistaken. In this way, a completed battle plan, a day’s accomplishments, mistakes repaired, greater success ensured for the following day – all were lost in one moment of panic. Even the squadrons at the Emperor’s side were jostled and disorganised by the tumultuous rush, and could do nothing but follow the flood. […] We know what the bravest army in the world becomes when it is confused and loses its organisation.