In June 2023, Erez Lebanon gave a lecture, as part of The Napoleonic Heritage Center and its Period, which dealt with the long-standing struggle between England and France, with an emphasis, of course, on Napoleon's war against England. We are currently working on the 2023-2024 lecture season and you are of course invited to enter the link I provided and sign up for the mailing list.
And until the lecture season is ready, you are invited to watch Erez's lecture via this page, or, if you prefer to read, you can simply continue on.
On June 4, 1940, Winston Churchill gave a speech to the British Parliament, saying, among other things:
“We are told that Hitler has a plan to invade the British Isles. This thought has come up many times before. When Napoleon was camped at Boulogne with his flat-bottomed ships and his mighty army for a year. He was told by someone: “There are bitter weeds in England,” and I tell you there are now many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force came home.”
This speech was delivered at one of Britain's most difficult hours in centuries. Two weeks earlier, the French defenses at Sedan and on the Meuse had been breached. Belgian King Leopold surrendered and a German army surged into the France. The British Expeditionary Force was driven back, pushed back and trapped on a narrow strip of coast on the Channel around the town of Dunkirk. Three-quarters of the professional British army faced annihilation. On May 26, Operation Dynamo began. Some nine hundred British vessels of various types and sizes evacuated some 338,000 Allied soldiers. The British Expeditionary Force was saved. But wars are not won by evacuation and a crushed Britain faced the real danger of invasion for the third time in its history.
In this speech, one of his most brilliant and timeless, Churchill, in order to strengthen the spirit of the British people, needed to recall a similarly desperate situation that had occurred 137 years earlier, when England faced the threat of Napoleon's invasion.
Churchill and Napoleon
This is not the only time Churchill mentions Napoleon in his speeches. I found five more places. And in all of them Churchill does not despise, does not condemn, does not mock or ridicule Napoleon as he does towards Hitler. And the reason, however surprising it may sound to you – from his youth Churchill admired Napoleon. Although he does call him a dictator here and there, it seems that Napoleon’s enlightened dictatorship did not seem to Churchill to be such a bad method. In August 1941, while encouraging himself after his meeting with the President of the United States, Roosevelt. A meeting at which the Atlantic Treaty was signed – which was the first step towards the entry of the United States into the war – Churchill gave another speech and said:
"Napoleon, in his glory and genius, had enlarged and enlarged his empire, and only the snows of Russia and the white cliffs of Dover with the fleet guarding them stood between him and world domination. Napoleon's armies had a purpose. They carried with them the slogan French Revolution"Liberty, equality, and fraternity—that was the battle cry, they swept away the maritime system and the privileges of the aristocracy. The land was for its citizens, and a new code of law was written. In any case, the Napoleonic empire had vanished like a dream. But Hitler. Hitler has no purpose, he has nothing but madness, appetite, and exploitation. But he has weapons and machines with which to trample and wear down, and to hold under his occupation the countries he has subdued. Weapons and machines that are the product, the distorted and regrettable product, of modern science."
Churchill also said that history is written by the victors. Indeed, in the passage I have just quoted to you, Churchill writes the history of the victors, of Britain. I do not mean his statement that weapons and machinery were the reason for the Wehrmacht’s success when he does not mention the diabolical indoctrination that many German soldiers were subjected to – the World War was still in full swing and it was too early to write its history. I mean his statement that “the snows of Russia and the cliffs of Dover with the fleet guarding them stood between Napoleon and world domination.” This is the narrative of the victors – of Britain. If France had won the war, Napoleon would have written history and said that only he, Napoleon, stood between Britain and world domination.
The Napoleonic Wars were a direct continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars, which broke out in May 1792, with Britain joining the war in February 1793. The wars lasted 23 years until the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Initially, the war was a struggle between the old world and the French Revolution that threatened to change its order. Later, the war developed into a struggle for world control, with England pulling the strings behind the scenes that operated the European powers.
This war did not stand alone. This war was the epilogue – the epilogue of a centuries-long struggle between England and France, a struggle whose character changed over the years. Initially it was a war for control of territories on the Continent. After William “the Bastard”, Duke Normandy, who conquered England in 1066, he and his descendants, in addition to being kings of England, hold extensive estates in France. They continue to speak French and maintain a French-style court in England. William the Conqueror's grandson, Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, becomes King of England as Henry II, and following his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the passionate ex-wife of King Louis VII of France, he receives as a dowry, in addition to his domains of Normandy and Anjou, the domains of Gascony, Périgord and Aquitaine. The English hold on the continent threatens the Capetian kings of France who rule the Île-de-France and several surrounding provinces. One of them, Philip II, son of Louis VII, also known as Philip Augustus, one of the greatest kings of France, takes advantage of the death of Henry II, and the disabilities of his two sons, Richard the Lionheart, whose courage is said to have been inversely proportional to his intelligence, and his mad brother, “John without a country,” and annexes, almost without a fight, a considerable part of the English possessions, including Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, and Poitiers. But England continued to hold on to the continent, and it was clear that a decisive war was inevitable, and indeed this war would break out in 1337 following the abdication of the English King, Edward III, of the French crown, relying on the laws of succession of those years and being a descendant of the same Eleanor of Aquitaine. The laws of succession were on his side, but the nobles of France were against him. And a war known as the “Hundred Years’ War” would break out, which would last one hundred and sixteen years, and which would end with the loss of all of England’s possessions on the continent except for the city of Calais, on the banks of the Channel, which would also be taken from them at the end of the sixteenth century.
From now on, the English Channel (“the Sleeve” in French) will be England’s southern border, and until the invention of the airplane and the missile, this border will be a very effective obstacle against invasion of its territory. England is closed to the English Isle, but her eyes continue to be fixed on the continent, because her economy will be based on international trade, mainly with the continent, and this trade requires open ports for her goods from the other side of the Channel, mainly in the Low Countries. On the other hand, the provinces of France will unite and merge into one large country that will gradually occupy a central place on the continent. However, many years will pass before England becomes the whale of the seas and France the elephant of the land.
As long as the Spanish Empire dominated the dome on both land and sea in the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, England and France often found themselves on the same side of the fence to act as a counterweight. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain merged with the Holy Roman Empire, controlled by the House of Habsburg, headed by Emperor Charles V, born in 1500, who in Spain would be called Carlos I.
From now on, the House of Habsburg would rule over a discontinuous territorial network stretching from Gibraltar in the west to Hungary in the east and from Sicily in the south to Amsterdam in the north. France and England were threatened. France would find itself besieged and threatened on all sides, and England would find itself hostage to Spain, which controlled the ports of the Low Countries, including Flanders, which was rich thanks to the wool industry imported from England.
Common interests and the beginning of a struggle between England and France
Now England and France have a common interest – to keep Spain away from the Low Countries. It was not for nothing that Queen Elizabeth I said at that time that “when the last day of France comes, it will also be the ruin of England.”
England is following the Spanish giant by becoming the patron saint of pirates, who plunder the Spanish gold ships that make their way from the South American continent to Europe for the English crown. The pirates, the most famous of whom is Francis Drake, who will be knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. Philip II, King of Spain, is furious, and he will send his great armada with its one hundred and fifty ships and thirty thousand soldiers to invade England, but the courage of the English seamen and the raging waters of the Channel smash the armada onto the cliffs of England and out of the one hundred and fifty ships, only fifty will return to Spain.
The beginning of Spain's decline is attributed to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, from 1659, which put an end to the war between Spain and France that lasted eleven years after the end of the Thirty Years' War. However, already in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, Spain pledged to withdraw a significant part of its forces from the Low Countries and grant the Netherlands independence.
Now a struggle will begin between England and France over the fate of the Low Countries, with England wanting them to remain independent so that they can serve both as a buffer between itself and France and as an outlet for its goods exported to the continent, while France, for its part, wants to swallow the Low Countries in order to reach its natural borders, which it claims are the coast of the Channel from the north all the way to Antwerp and the Rhine River in the east.
Today, the populations of the United Kingdom and France are comparable in size, at around seventy million people, with a slight advantage for the United Kingdom. However, this was not the case during the period we are talking about – the seventeenth century. England’s population was around five million people, between a quarter and a third of France’s population, and in this situation, England could not field a land army that could deal alone with any European power, and therefore England made sure to form coalitions with some continental powers whenever it was required to fight on the continent. England would also develop a strategy aimed at preventing the hegemony of another power on the continent, and especially preventing the hegemony of France.
However, in the second half of the seventeenth century, England had a rival from across the Channel. The Netherlands itself was growing into a maritime and commercial power, and in 1666 a Dutch fleet under De Ruyter inflicted a crushing defeat on an English fleet. England learned the hard way that in order to control the seas, it had to appoint naval commanders based on their skills and not just their status.
This is the place to note that since the beginning of the eighteenth century, in 1707, with its union with Scotland, England's name has changed to Great Britain, and since 1801 with its union with Ireland, its name will change to the United Kingdom. And I apologize in advance that if I say England in the following when referring to the years after 1707 – know that I mean Great Britain.
In the century before the French Revolution, England had established itself as the world's greatest naval power. While by the end of the seventeenth century the navies of England and France were equal in size, on the eve of the French Revolution England possessed 195 warships while France possessed only 81 warships.
England would also participate in most of the wars fought on the continent in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but always, always, within the framework of coalitions. For example, in the Nine Years' War of 1688–1697, England joined a coalition of the Habsburgs, Spain, and Portugal against the France of King Louis XIV; in the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–1714, England joined a coalition of the Habsburgs, the Netherlands, and Prussia against a coalition of France, Bavaria, Spain, and Portugal. At the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, France took control of the Low Countries, only to retreat in haste after an English army under the command of John Churchill, known as the Duke of Marlborough, an ancestor of Winston Churchill (incidentally, the Duke's father was also named Winston), defeated a French army in 1704 at Blenheim in southern Germany.; In the War of the Austrian Succession, which took place between 1740 and 1748, Britain joined a coalition of the House of Habsburg, the Netherlands, Saxony and Russia fighting against France, Prussia, Bavaria and Sardinia; In the Seven Years' War that took place between 1756 and 1763, and which broke out, among other things, due to the desire of Frederick II the Great to annex Silesia - East Prussia, Britain joined Prussia along with Portugal, and the latter fought with considerable success against the great powers of Europe, including the House of Habsburg, France, Spain and Russia. The Seven Years' War also spilled over beyond the borders of Europe, and on the North American continent, France and Britain fought each other for control of the Ohio Valley. In all these wars, which lasted a total of 47 years, Britain and France fought each other on both sides of the fence.
In the agreement Paris Since 1763, which ended the Seven Years' War, Britain has been the main beneficiary. It advances in the West Indies and West Africa, it eliminates the French presence in India and is at the top of the ladder on the North American continent. France's expansionist ambitions in Europe have been thwarted.
Colonial dispersion
Look at these two maps of the British and French colonial empires. The maps reflect the state of these empires at their peak, but they also provide a glimpse into the state of affairs on the eve of the French Revolution. As you can see, British red dominates the world, compared to French blue. On the surface, it seems like a “catch as much as you can” contest. This is only partially true, because if we draw lines between the red spots, we can see the logic of Britain’s continental distribution. The lines mark Britain’s trade routes across the oceans and the Mediterranean to its destination – India – which was the source of its wealth. Don’t forget – trade in those days was done in slow sailing ships whose movement depended on the winds and currents of the sea, and trading stations were essential on the long journey for supplies and rest.
The difference in colonial distribution also stemmed from the different economic methods of the two countries. While the British economy relied mainly on foreign sources, France advocated a method called mercantilism, which minimizes reliance on foreign sources. This was done by imposing protective tariffs and by increasing the means of production in the aim of minimizing imports and increasing exports as much as possible in order to enrich the state treasury. This method reached its peak during the reign of King Louis XIV and is attributed to his chief minister, the talented Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who created a planned economy in every detail based mainly on agriculture, in which he saw the source of a country's wealth.
French Revolution
Then in 1789 the French Revolution broke out and shattered the relative calm that had prevailed in Europe for twenty-six years since the end of the Seven Years' War. Initially, the revolutionary army suffered defeats, but the situation changed at the end of 1792. France invaded the Rhineland. It captured Mainz, whose capture allowed free navigation on the river. It would conquer Frankfurt, the Scheldt estuary, Flanders and Antwerp within it, and Brussels. At the end of January 1793, George Danton would say: “The borders of France were determined by nature and we reached them in four places: the Channel in the north, the Rhine in the east, the Alps in the south, and the Pyrenees in the southwest.”
Britain would join the war in February 1793 after its commercial interests were damaged by France's takeover of the Low Countries. But as usual, Britain did not fight alone but joined a coalition that included most of the countries on the continent, including the House of Habsburg, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and the Kingdom of Piedmont in Italy.
In the same year that the war breaks out in 1792, Napoleon Bonaparte is a junior lieutenant in the French army looking for his future in Corsica. Being an obsessive reader, especially history books, he is knowledgeable about English history from reading John Barrow's book "A New and Impartial History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to 1762". But he will first encounter the English in front of the cannons when he is appointed towards the end of 1793 as commander of the artillery in the siege of the city of Toulon, in southern France, which rebelled in the revolution with the help of a British fleet under the command of Admiral Hood. This was after he and his family fled Corsica, pursued by the Paulist faction loyal to Britain. Toulon falls, Napoleon excels in battle and is promoted to the rank of general of brigade. Admiral Hood and his ships evacuate the port of Toulon and sail directly to Corsica, which Britain has long wanted to paint red. In the conquest of Corsica, a young English captain named Captain Horatio Nelson, later Admiral Nelson, loses his right eye. But Britain's control of Corsica is short-lived, and it vacates the island in October 1796, and the island is once again painted French blue.
At the same time that the war broke out, 1796, Napoleon was leading the French army in northern Italy, and he defeated two of the members of the First Coalition, the Kingdom of Piedmont and Austria, with whom he would sign a peace treaty at Campo Formio on October 1797, XNUMX.
Napoleon would return to Paris as the great victor and the celebrated peacemaker. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, he would be sent by the Directory, the governing body of France at the time, to the Channel coast to examine the feasibility of an invasion of Britain. On February 23.02.1798, XNUMX, he wrote:
“Whatever efforts we make, it will be many years before we can obtain sea supremacy. An invasion of England without control of the sea is the most difficult and daring plan ever conceived. It could be accomplished by a sudden passage, either by evading the fleet blockading Brest and Texel, or by landing in small boats during the night after a seven- or eight-hour sea crossing to some point in the counties of Kent or Sussex. This operation requires long nights, and hence must be carried out in the winter. It cannot be attempted later than April. An invasion of England in sailing ships in calm seas in summer is impracticable. The enemy will place obstacles in our way which we cannot overcome by landing on the shore, and still more by crossing by sea. The English expedition therefore seems impracticable until next year, and then it may be prevented by fresh embarrassments on the Continent. The real moment for preparing this invasion is past, and may never return. We must therefore give up all attempts to invade England and be content with a pretense, and at the same time devote all our attention and resources to the Rhine, in order to deprive England of Hanover and Hamburg. Or we must send an expeditionary force to the Levant to threaten the trade with India. If none of these three operations is possible I see no alternative but to make peace with England. In that case we shall secure ourselves great advantages in our discussions at Arnstadt. If peace is made with England during the Congress we shall be in a position to make many new demands on the German Empire.
In this letter, the 28-year-old Napoleon reveals himself to have broad and deep strategic vision. He knows that in the absence of control of the sea, it will be impossible to defeat Britain except through its pockets, through its trade, by destroying its economy. But in that same year, 1798, he is heard saying in a private conversation:
“If my voice had any effect, England would not have rest from us for even one hour. Yes, yes, war to the death with England, without ceasing until she is destroyed.”
Which of these two voices most accurately reflects Napoleon's true thoughts? This is the pit into which every novice researcher of Napoleon falls who tries to find a common denominator, consistency, and orderly change in his conduct. It takes a long time for that researcher to understand that Napoleon did not and could not act according to a regular plan because throughout his reign he was forced to react to events that befell him at a dizzying pace. And one can believe the truth of what he said while in exile on the island of Saint Helena in 1816:
“I may have had many plans, but my hands were never free to carry them out. It did me no good to hold the helm no matter how strong my hands were. The many sudden waves were stronger, and I was wise enough to flow with them rather than try to resist them and capsize the ship. In truth, I was never master of myself and was always controlled by circumstances…
The Directory jumps at the offer to send a expeditionary force to the Levant. He wants to kill two birds with one stone. To hit Britain in the soft underbelly of its trade, and get rid of the general, whose rising political power threatens him. And what follows – Admiral Nelson sinks the ships of the French fleet at Abu-Kir by Alexandria. The French army in Egypt is cut off from Europe. Napoleon receives news that a second coalition has been formed in Europe that threatens France, and he realizes that his glory and honor will not come from the East. He leaves the French army in Egypt and returns to France. He lands in southern France in September 1799 and just two months later, in November 1799, he is already First Consul ruling France. One of his first acts – on December 25, 1799, he writes a letter to George III, King of Great Britain:
To His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland,
“…Will there not be an end to the war which for eight years has devastated every region of the earth? Are there no means by which we can come to an understanding? It is as if the two most enlightened nations of Europe, two nations more powerful than is necessary for their security and independence, agree to sacrifice their commercial success, their internal prosperity and the happiness of their homes for the sake of dreams of imaginary greatness. It is as if they do not see peace as their greatest glory and their most necessary need…..It is impossible that these feelings are foreign to the heart of your Majesty, for the sole purpose for which you govern a free people is to give them happiness….If France and England continue to misuse their power, they will be able to postpone for a long time the complete annihilation of their forces, but it will be an international disaster. I dare say that the fate of every civilized country depends on the end of the war which is tormenting the whole world.”
Look at this man sitting on the first day of the nineteenth century in Windsor Castle near London. You are looking at King George III of England. Sixty-two years old, on his throne for forty years, since he was 62. His great-grandfather, George I, was actually a German prince, the Elector of Hanover, who was crowned King of England as a compromise between the Tories and the Whigs after Queen Anne of England died without leaving an heir.
George III, whose mother tongue is English, unlike his great-grandfather George I and his grandfather George II, whose mother tongue was German, is conservative, rigid, decent, educated, who takes his royal role very seriously and strives to improve the condition of his subjects. A tall man, with a round face, a low forehead, fair hair, prominent blue eyes, full lips and a receding chin. He moves slowly, thinks slowly, uses twenty words where another person would use ten. Already at the age of fifty he began to suffer from a metabolic disorder, which caused temporary fits of madness that worsened.
The king's anger burns within him to the point of corruption. He feels humiliated by the writer's impudence. Thirty years earlier, he, George III of Great Britain, had already passed a law in the British Parliament prohibiting a nobleman from marrying a commoner without the king's consent, and now he allows himself this Corsican, a nameless son who rose from the dunghills, to address him directly as an equal among equals. Although the address is in polite language, the pretense of equality makes his blood boil.
But it is not only the class gap that blinds him from seeing the hand extended for peace, but above all the instinct for revenge. Revenge for the severe humiliation inflicted on Britain during his reign. The humiliation that France was behind, the humiliation of losing Britain's great colony on the North American continent - the Thirteen Colonies. When George III ascended the throne, Britain enjoyed the fruits of the Seven Years' War, but wars cost money, and in order to fill its empty coffers, Britain imposed taxes on the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies - taxes that ignited the fire of rebellion that turned into the American War of Independence.
France, licking the wounds of the Seven Years' War, sat on the fence and rubbed its hands with pleasure, and when the rebel army defeated the British army at Saratoga, north of New York in 1977, France joined the war and provided money, weapons and soldiers. And it was France that decided the fate of the war when in 1781 it blocked a British fleet in the Chesapeake Bay from coming to the aid of the besieged British force at Yorktown, forcing the British commander, General Charles Cornwallis, to surrender on October 25, 1781, to the combined American-French army - a surrender that marked the end of Britain's control of its largest colony on the North American continent - the Thirteen Colonies.
George III is unwilling to respond to the letter himself. He instructs the Foreign Secretary, William Granville, to respond to the letter, but not on official paper but on simple messenger paper, and not on his behalf to that Corsican, God forbid, but to Talleyrand, his Foreign Minister. Granville formulates a haughty and tactless reply. He demands that France restore the Bourbons to power and return to the borders of 1789.
And so on. Napoleon defeats the Austrians at Marengo in northern Italy on June 14, 1800, while General Jean Victor Marie Moreau defeats the Austrians and Bavarians at Hohenlinden in Germany. Austria and its partners in the Second Coalition, with the exception of Britain, sign a humiliating peace treaty at Luneville in February 1801. Austria is also obliged to pay huge reparations to France for violating the peace treaty since 1797.
Impoverished and frightened Britain is left alone in the campaign. But, as is its way of operating in the dark, it will be behind the assassination a month later, in March 1801, of the Russian Tsar Paul I, who has turned against the Second Coalition and begun to show sympathy for France. In his place will come his son, Alexander I, an eccentric man, incapable of decision-making, subject to the influence of the clique around him and associated with Britain.
As long as France was busy with the war on the continent, its plan to invade England was postponed. As William Wickham, a member of the British Tory Party, the party of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, put it: “We cannot but consider the employment of France in a continued war on the continent as the only certain means of security for us…”
But now that its partners in the Second Coalition had signed a separate peace treaty with France, Britain was left with no choice. Although George III and William Pitt wanted to continue the war, which had already cost Britain £400 million because they were not prepared for a second Yorktown and were not prepared to accept the loss of Antwerp, Britain would not fight alone.
William Pitt resigns for a reason unrelated to the war, but to the Catholics in Ireland. In his place, Henry Addington, a weak, unambitious moderate, will be appointed Prime Minister. He will send our acquaintance, General Charles Corvallis, who is responsible for signing unpleasant documents, to the city of Amiens in France, where he will sign an agreement with Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, known as the "Peace of Amiens."
Britain pledged in the agreement to return all of its recent territorial conquests. To return Alexandria to the Ottoman Empire, to return the Malta, which it had recently taken over, to France. France, for its part, pledged to return Trento to the King of Naples. Britain is at a disadvantage in the negotiations, and therefore there is not a single word in the agreement about France annexing the Netherlands and Belgium.
Napoleon and the English people are pleased. Napoleon begins to talk about the “great European family.” He places on his table the effigies of Horatio Nelson and Charles James Fox, a leader in the Whig party and a particularly enthusiastic supporter of peace with France. Fox is a fascinating character, a large man, a hedonist, a gambler, a womanizer. Between him and William Pitt, the thin, shy, sullen and gloomy bachelor, there is a mutual loathing. Fox joins the British tourists who fill the streets of Paris. He will meet Napoleon three times and while the latter tries to work his charms on him, Fox complains in his ear about the restrictions on freedom of the press in France.
The year 1802 brings a boom to English trade. The ports of Bremen and Hamburg replace the French-controlled port of Antwerp, which in turn reduces tariffs on many products.
But within the British war party, a murmur against the treaty begins. Foreign Secretary Granville describes Napoleon as a tiger unleashed to devour humanity. William Pitt outwardly supports peace but privately condemns Napoleon as a military tyrant.
France and Britain exchange ambassadors. While France sends François Andreassi, a friendly and conciliatory man, to London, Britain sends Lord Charles Whitworth, Granville's friend and one of the leaders of those opposed to peace, to Paris. Even before meeting with Napoleon, Whitworth writes to London and reveals his enmity, resentment, jealousy, and hatred for Napoleon. He writes that Napoleon is denounced by nine out of ten people who are not connected with his government. He spreads a rumor that Napoleon will try to return and conquer Egypt.
Granville and his friends persuaded Addington to postpone the implementation of the Treaty of Amiens. According to the treaty, Britain pledged to return Malta to France by September 1802, but in December of that year British troops were still on the island. Napoleon, for his part, kept his promise and evacuated Trento.
Napoleon is beginning to worry. France's position is far from strong and the courts of Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Rome are beginning to buzz with anticipation of receiving a signal from Britain to strip France of its recent conquests. In January 1803, Britain has not yet returned Alexandria to the Ottoman Empire, and at the same time Napoleon is being vilified in the London Times as having poisoned 580 of his soldiers in Jaffa with opium.
Napoleon, whose pride knows no bounds, is deeply offended and responds by publishing in the Parisian newspaper “Le Moniteur” an article by General Sebastiani, who has returned from a mission in the Middle East, and he does not censor anything regarding the prevailing opinion in Cairo that the French will return.
England feels threatened and the Peace Party weakens
The British war party, which had initially opposed peace, began to incite against Napoleon, claiming that he sought to take over Europe and later the entire world. British cartoonists depicted Napoleon in distorted, evil, and monstrous forms. Rumors spread about Josephine's sexual promiscuity, along with a rumor that Napoleon had slept with her daughter.
King George III recommends an increase in the manpower of the navy, claiming that extensive military preparations are underway in France – a false claim that even Whitworth denies.
On March 13th, a grand reception at the Weaving Palace
Hilary in Paris, and in the presence of about two hundred guests, including all the ambassadors, Napoleon bursts into great fury at the English ambassador, Lord Whitworth, and insultingly attacks him: "France and England have been at war for fifteen years. It seems that a storm is brewing in London and you want a war that will last another fifteen years."
Napoleon played into Whitworth's hands by this. He acknowledged it and later told Joseph: “I was wrong.” In his next meeting with Whitworth he would try to be polite, but it was already too late.
On March 22, Granville writes: “Our government has so arranged things that Napoleon himself cannot retreat.” Britain begins to do what it does best – bribe. Whitworth receives £100,000 and he is to meet with Talleyrand.
Napoleon, who is interested in peace, offers the English Crete and Corfu as an alternative to Malta. However, Whitworth places an ultimate demand on his table: Britain will continue to hold Malta for ten years and France will withdraw its forces from the Netherlands and Switzerland. He threatens war if France does not meet this demand within seven days.
Within seven days Whitworth announces his intention to leave Paris. Napoleon relents and agrees that Britain will continue to hold Malta for four years, after which the island will fall into the hands of one of the three powers, Austria, Prussia or Russia. Whitworth recommends this daring proposal, but the English cabinet decides to reject it.
Napoleon ponders an even more outrageous proposal. Britain will hold Malta for ten years and will also receive the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, permanently. But when he comes to present his proposal to the Council, he changes his mind and says that “if the First Consul agrees to a peace treaty with so many patches, it will be justified to depose him.” The Council agrees with him. Whitworth leaves Paris. Napoleon bends further and sends a message to Whitworth: England will hold Malta for ten years if France is allowed to hold Trento again. The British cabinet rejects the proposal and the war is renewed.
Napoleon concentrates large military forces on the coast of the Channel, in and around Boulogne. The plan is to cross the Channel on about two hundred landing craft – flat-bottomed ships – provided that a combined French-Spanish fleet gains control of the Channel for a few days. The fleet is to include 50 battleships, 20 frigates, 14 corvettes and 25 rigs, in addition to the Spanish ships. However, the fleet is scattered and trapped in various ports besieged by the English fleet.
The French army would camp on the banks of the Channel for over a year, and there is controversy over whether Napoleon really intended to invade Britain or whether it was just a distraction, as Napoleon wrote in his letter to the Directory back in February 1798. But considering the many millions spent on building those landing platforms, which drained the French treasury, it seems that his intentions were serious.
In July 1805, a preparatory exercise was carried out in the presence of Napoleon. An entire army under the command of Ney was loaded onto ships at Etaples (25 km south of Boulogne) in 49 minutes. But Napoleon wanted to continue the exercise and demanded that the ships go out to sea. However, the sea was rough and the commander of the fleet in Boulogne, Bruix, refused the order. Napoleon became enraged and was about to hit Bruix with his riding whip. Admiral Bruix reached for his sword and only the intervention of the entourage prevented a violent collision. In the end, the ships went out to sea, twelve ships capsized on their occupants and about three hundred French soldiers drowned. Napoleon himself entered one of the boats that tried to save the drowning men, but not a single word of regret came out of his mouth. In general, Napoleon said that a ruler should never apologize.
On the other hand, the British Navy did not sit idly by and carried out surprise attacks on the French coast. It did cause considerable damage, but during 1804 the English Navy lost 21 ships in the Channel. Britain also strengthened and expanded the fortifications along the Channel, the construction of which began immediately after the outbreak of the French Revolution. A large part of these fortifications are in the form of circular bastions topped with a cannon that can be set 390 degrees. These bastions were called Martello and most of them still stand today. And this is the man William Hobson, who was behind the construction of the Martello.
However, luck did not play in Napoleon's hands this time. Vice Admiral Latouche-Treville, the best seaman in the French navy, fell ill and died in August 1804. In his place, Vice Admiral Pierre Charles Villeneuve was appointed. A bad decision that would cause the greatest disaster in the history of the French navy. Villeneuve was one of the commanders of the fleet at Abu-Kir in Egypt that was sunk by Nelson. He escaped on one of the remaining ships and sailed straight to France without asking permission. From then on, he was traumatized and paralyzed with fear whenever the name Nelson came up.
Napoleon's plan was to deceive the British fleet by having Villeneuve's ships trapped in the Mediterranean port of Toulon break out and join up with the Spanish fleet, which would break out of Cadiz and then sail for Martinique in the Caribbean. At the same time, Vice Admiral Honore' Joseph Ganteaume would break out with his ships from the besieged port of Brest and join the fleet in the Caribbean. The ships would then turn around and sail for the Channel in order to engage the British fleet and allow the invasion. However, the plan went awry due to Admiral Ganteaume's refusal to sail from Brest. The combined Franco-Spanish fleet under Villeneuve's command would return to the mainland and anchor in Cadiz, with Villeneuve having orders to continue north to the Channel. But then Napoleon changed his mind. News arrived of Russian army concentrations on the Polish border and Austrian army concentrations on the Bavarian border - the Third Coalition was on its way.
Napoleon sends Villeneuve an order to sail from Cadiz to the Mediterranean. However, the order arrives late. Villeneuve and his ships have already left the port of Cadiz on their way north to the Channel. A short distance from Cadiz at Cape Trafalgar, the English fleet under Nelson's command awaits. The result - out of 33 ships of the combined Franco-Spanish fleet, 22 are sunk or captured. Villeneuve himself is taken prisoner. He will be released in April 1806 and while in the city of Rennes in northwestern France he writes:
“Alone, slandered by Napoleon, rejected by the Minister of the Navy, who was my friend, and taking responsibility for the terrible disaster that has made me a symbol of terror, I see no choice but to die.”
He stabbed himself with a dagger, but it took seven stabs before the blade reached the heart. Even in his suicide, Villeneuve was unlucky, and Napoleon did not like unlucky people.
Napoleon will move his army from the shores of the Channel to the banks of the Rhine. 210,000 soldiers, 390 km in seven days, 55 km of march per day with each soldier carrying his equipment. Then on December 2, 1805 – Napoleon wins the greatest of his victories among the three emperors at Austerlitz, and he defeats the armies of Russia and Austria. On December 26, Austria signs a peace treaty with France in Pressburg (now Bratislava). A peace treaty that is more correctly called a surrender treaty. Venice, Dalmatia and Istria are annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, and additional provinces are taken from Austria in favor of Bavaria.
The victory at Austerlitz places Napoleon in a position of supremacy on the continent. Now he will begin to shape Europe as he wishes. A few months later, his two brothers, Joseph, are crowned King of Naples, and Louis as King of the Netherlands, while his adopted son, Eugene de Beauharnais, son of Josephine, has previously been appointed Viceroy of Italy, with Napoleon himself wearing the Iron Crown of Italy. The Holy Roman Empire dies and the Kingdom of Austria rises in its place. The German princes who helped France are rewarded and crowned kings. The King of Bavaria, the King of Württemberg, the Grand Duke of Baden. The Confederation of the Rhine is established on the eastern bank of the river. Napoleon surrounds France within its natural borders and the countries controlled by France or that are its protectorates.
Then, reaching its first peak militarily, diplomatically and politically, the seed of disaster was sown. Disaster in the form of a disease. A disease called “hubris.” To trace the development of the disease, we will go back a year, to December 1804, XNUMX, exactly a year before the great victory at Austerlitz.
Napoleon is crowned emperor in a spectacular ceremony in the presence of the Pope at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. His proclamation as emperor had come six months earlier in May 1804, but the ceremony was intended not only to impress the citizens of France but also to signal to the rulers of Europe that Napoleon was now one of them – Paris inter pares. Exactly one month after the coronation, on 02.01.1805, Napoleon writes a second letter to George III, King of Great Britain, but this time he does not address him from below with the title “Your Majesty”, as he had addressed him five years earlier when he was First Consul, but rather at eye level, writing:
“Monsieur, my brother…”
“Called to the French throne by divine grace and by the vote of the Senate, the people and the army, my first impulse is to pray for peace. France and England are exhausting their resources. Indeed, they can continue to fight for centuries, but do not their governments fail in the sanctity of their duties. Will their consciences not prick them with so much bloodshed, useless and aimless? I do not consider it a lack of dignity for me to begin the first explorations. I believe that I have given the world more than enough proof that I do not shrink from anything that war may bring under its wings, and that I do not see in it a danger that inspires panic. My heart's desire is peace, but war has never been foreign to my concepts of glory. I beg your Majesty not to reject the honor of being the peacemaker of the world. Do not bequeath this pleasant task to your children, for, in fact, there has never been a finer opportunity and a more kosher time to lower every emotion and silence every voice except the voice of humanity and the call of common sense. In the last ten years, Your Majesty has gained wealth and territory larger than the whole of Europe. What more is there to hope for? Victory in the war? To form a coalition with some of the continental powers? The continent will not budge, and a coalition will only emphasize the decisive power of France on the European continent. To ruin us financially? But a financial system based on good agriculture cannot be ruined. How sad is the prospect of sending men to war only that they may continue to fight. The world is big enough for both of our peoples to live in, and common sense is strong enough to find means of settling all our differences, if only we both find the will to do so. In any case, I have fulfilled what my heart considers a sacred and precious duty and I ask Your Majesty to believe in the sincerity of my expressed feelings, and I wish to give Your Majesty evidence of this.
George III rejects the hand extended for peace for the second time. He hopes for the collapse of Napoleon's rule. The economic situation in France at the beginning of 1805 is dire. The public treasury is empty and France is facing a financial crisis. Although England is under the nightmare of threats of invasion, many believe that this is nothing more than a pretense, and that the British navy is strong enough to repel this invasion if it does come.
Let's go back a year, to December 1805, after Austerlitz. I searched and searched and searched and did not find another letter that Napoleon wrote to George III, King of Great Britain. However, I did find a letter that Napoleon wrote ten days after the victory at Austerlitz to his brother, Joseph, in which he rebukes Joseph for trying to negotiate with France's enemies, including Britain, and he writes:
“Peace cannot be achieved by calling for peace. The word “peace” is nothing. We need a special kind of peace – peace with glory.”
The victory at Austerlitz changed Napoleon. From now on, Napoleon no longer wants to be Paris inter pares – “equal among equals”. He wants to be Primus inter pares – “first among equals”. He does not want a “peace of the brave” – and I borrow the phrase coined by President Anwar Sadat – but he wants a “peace of victors”. He wants “peace with glory”. Peace with glory is not peace. Peace with glory is submission and victory. Napoleon wants to bring Britain to its knees as he has already brought Austria to its knees and as he will bring Prussia to its knees.
Britain will never agree to this. Britain has always been in Splendid Isolation – in “splendid solitude”. And it will not betray its principles. It will never agree to be subject to the hegemony of any other country – this principle has been at its heart ever since. Look at its attitude towards the European Union and the stupid decision of Brexit.
Some say that Napoleon's great mistake was to invade Spain and Russia. I argue that his great mistake came even earlier, when he allowed the germ of hubris to take hold of his soul after the victory at Austerlitz. If King Louis XIV had been in Napoleon's shoes after Austerlitz, he would have used the fruits of victory as bargaining chips to improve the situation of France without humiliating the defeated rulers. For in the old world, rulers were metaphorically members of one family, and the humiliation of one of them would have hurt the whole family. But in the new world, Napoleon is a son of the revolution, a man who came from nowhere and climbed to the top of the world, and he, he wants to change its order - he wants to bring Britain to its knees.
Napoleon completes his conquest of continental Europe. He defeats the Prussians on October 14, 1806, at Vienna, and completes his victory over Russia in two battles – in February 1807 at Eylau and on June 14, 1807 at Friedland. And in July 1807, he signs a peace treaty with Tsar Alexander I on a raft, placed in the mouth of the Neman River near a town called Tilsit.
After his victory at Vienna, when Napoleon entered Berlin, his first thought was to deal with his great enemy – Britain. He could not defeat her either at sea or on land, so he would defeat her through her pockets, he would damage her trade, he would destroy her economy. On November 21, 1806, an order known as the “Berlin Order” was published – imposing a blockade to prevent the penetration of British goods into the European continent – the “Continental System”. A year later, in 1807, an order known as the “Milan Order” was published, and another order was published in 1810.
It would be a mistake to credit Napoleon with the idea of the blockade. As early as September 1793, the Convention had banned the import of goods into France except in French ships and had banned the import of products produced in England or its colonies. France controlled Antwerp and could have done so. But the special feature of Napoleon's continental system is implied by its very name - it purported to prevent the penetration of British goods not only into France but into the entire European continent. From the shores of the Baltic Sea, through the shores of the North Sea, the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to Gibraltar and from the northern coast of the Mediterranean to Greece.
On December 3, 1807, he would write to his brother Louis, King of the Netherlands: “I will conquer the sea through the power of the land.”
But there remained a loophole – the coasts of Spain and Portugal, which was an ally of Britain. Napoleon imagined that control of Spain would be easy, especially after the Spanish King Charles IV and his son, who would become king, Ferdinand VII, approached him to act as an arbitrator between them. Napoleon jumped at the chance, invited the two to Bayeux in southern France, imprisoned them in a golden cage, and transferred his brother, Joseph, from Naples to become King of Spain.
But the continental system was pretentious even by Napoleon's standards. Despite thousands of customs officers and military personnel stationed in ports all along the continent's coast, smuggling could not be eradicated, and British goods penetrated the continent through the ports of Lisbon, Trieste, Athens, Scandinavia, Gibraltar, Livorno, St. Petersburg, and more. Moreover, the economic situation in France and on the continent also deteriorated. Basic products such as sugar, coffee, as well as basic industrial products were in short supply. Napoleon tried to solve this by developing industry in France, but carrying out this task in a country based on agriculture requires many years, and Napoleon did not have these years at his disposal.
But Napoleon believed in the prospects of the Continental System and that its success was only a matter of time. There was indeed a basis for this belief, as the situation in England was getting worse. The public debt was rising and threatening bankruptcy. A source of salvation came from St. Petersburg. At the court of the Romanovs, hostility to the ideas of the New World and its representative Napoleon prevailed. And Britain knew how to channel this hostility to its advantage. Tsar Alexander I turned a blind eye to the massive smuggling taking place through Russian ports, thereby violating his commitment in the Treaty of Tilsit. War was only a matter of time. Although a large part of his army was tied up in Spain, Napoleon mobilized a large, gigantic army – the largest army that Europe, if not the entire world, had known up to that time – six hundred thousand soldiers, and on June 24, 1812, the Grand Army crossed the Neman River and penetrated Russia.
Six months later, the remnants of the Grand Army return after leaving behind on the retreat route from Moscow about four hundred thousand corpses and about one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who fell into Russian captivity.
Napoleon leaves the remnants of the exiles in Vilna and returns with a handful of people to France via Poland and Germany. He begins the journey in a snow sled, with General Caulincourt sitting next to him, who was, among other things, the French ambassador to St. Petersburg, and he will document the journey in his book: “With Napoleon in Russia” and he writes, among other things:
“I never remember such intense cold as we endured on our way from Vilna and Kaunas. The thermometer showed 25 degrees below zero. The Emperor was dressed in thick wool and covered with a warm blanket. His feet were in fur boots and over them a fur bag. And yet he did not cease to complain about the intense cold to such an extent that I had to cover him with half of my fur blanket. The air from his mouth froze on his lips, forming tiny ice icicles under his nose, on his eyebrows and around his eyelids. All parts of the sledge were as hard as stone and white.”
The sledge moves forward and forward and Napoleon talks and talks – talking himself to know. And what is he talking about? He is not talking about the great disaster that befell him in Russia, but he is talking about Britain and the Continental System. And from the dozens of pages in which his words are quoted, I have chosen only two sentences:
“The Continental System was a great idea and it was destined to win the support of all people because it was intended to benefit the individual and not just countries. It was a mighty plan that only I could realize, because it was conditional on the existence of conditions that had been created in Europe thanks to me in recent years.”
Notice – Napoleon eulogizes the Continental System. He speaks of it in the past tense. See how many past tense words are found in these two sentences.
Some say that Napoleon's defeat was caused by the rain that fell all night between June 17 and 18, 1815, the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, because of the deep mud that formed and delayed the start of the battle and because of the absence of Marshal Groszy and his troops from the battlefield. However, I argue that Napoleon's defeat began even earlier, in his head, while he was sitting in that snow sled. Even before the invasion of Russia, Napoleon knew that he could not defeat Britain either by sea or by land. And now, sitting in the snow sled. He recognized that his plan to defeat Britain through her pocket, through her trade, to destroy her trade, had also failed. From now on, Napoleon would try to save the rest of his empire, but as Marshal Ney said when he was sent by King Louis XVIII to arrest Napoleon when he returned to France from his first exile on the island of Elba: "I cannot stop the sea with my hands," Napoleon could not stop the sea of his enemies with his hands either, and he was defeated.
But even in his defeat, Napoleon emerged as a giant figure, as one of his associates, Mole, told him as early as 1813:
“Eternity would not know how to appreciate the greatness of your soul if it were not tested even in times of defeat.”
Then, when Napoleon is finally defeated at Waterloo, he chooses to surrender to his great enemy, Britain. And on July 15, 1815, he boards the British warship Bellerophone – the ship that will take him to the port of Porthmouth in Britain. On board, the ship's crew waits in a guard of honor. Napoleon stands before him and says:
“Well, gentlemen, you have the honor of belonging to the bravest and luckiest nation in the world.”
Two days earlier, on July 13, 1815 at midnight, Napoleon was sitting on the island of Aix between Rochfort and La Rochelle and writing a letter to George IV, the heir apparent and son of George III, who had ceased to function due to his illness:
“His Exalted Majesty, as I am persecuted by the factions which are tearing my country to pieces, and as I am subject to the hatred of the great powers of Europe, I end my political career, and come like Themistocles in his time to sit by the hearth in the bosom of the British people. I place myself under the protection of his laws, and beg his Majesty to grant me this protection, as he is the strongest, the most consistent, and the most generous of all my enemies.”
Who is the Themistocles mentioned in this letter? Themistocles was the general who led the Greeks when they defeated the Persians at the Bay of Salamis south of Athens in 480 BC. Later, Themistocles was pursued by the Greeks and surrendered to the Persians, his greatest enemies. And the Persians? The Persians received him with royal honor and housed him in the palace.
If Winston Churchill had been Prime Minister of England at that time, and not that narrow-minded and flightless man, Lord Liverpool, he would have treated Napoleon as the Persians treated Themistocles, and would have housed him in a palace in London. Churchill was historically aware and knew that this would glorify the honor of Britain for generations to come. But the Liverpool government sent Napoleon to die on that remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – St. Helena, which Emil Ludwig, one of Napoleon's best biographers, likened to a great coffin floating on the surface of the ocean. And Heinrich Heine, the brilliant Jewish-German poet, said:
“Britain, you have the sea, but the sea does not have enough water to wash away the disgrace that the great deceased has bestowed upon you in his death.”
Britain won the battle for world domination, but in one of the books I found a passage written by Churchill:
“Time passes and the night of time rises. Everything is swallowed up and disappears in fog and darkness. But Napoleon’s light is red, full of war, and it grows stronger as the years pass. A hero, a monster, he still rules the hearts of men with more power than he had when he sat on the imperial throne.”
Britain did win the battle for world domination, but this dominance would be taken from it in the early twentieth century around the two world wars by its former colony, the United States of America. But Napoleon remained in people's imaginations, as Churchill said: "Hero, monster, he still holds the hearts of the people with more power than he had when he sat on the imperial throne."
And proof of this is the fact that I have been studying Napoleon for over forty years, and you, a distinguished audience, have found it appropriate to dedicate an hour and a half of your time to hear the story of the man who passed away two hundred and two years ago.
A few words about Erez Lebanon and the Israeli Association for the Study of Napoleon
I am a Jerusalemite by birth (1950). I am a lawyer by profession, and studying Napoleon is one of my hobbies, along with other favorites like Heinrich Heine, who lived in Paris for 26 years until his death (buried in Montmartre).
A big fan of nineteenth-century French literature – that's where I got stuck. I haven't reached the twentieth century yet.
The Israeli Association for the Study of Napoleon and His Period was founded in Israel in 1997 by the late Prof. Mordechai Gihon of Tel Aviv University.
Since then, it has miraculously existed and maintains regular annual activities, mainly in the form of monthly lectures on Napoleon and his period, alongside tours following Napoleon's campaign in the Land of Israel.
Among the association's members were one of Israel's leading nuclear scientists, a former Chief of Staff, and one of Israel's greatest brain surgeons (names withheld, of course).
In addition, the association has held international conferences in Israel with the participation of renowned scholars from abroad. So far, conferences have been held on the following topics: “Bicentennial of Napoleon’s Campaign in Palestine” (in 1999), “Napoleon and the Jews – Bicentennial of the Sanhedrin in Paris” (in 2006), “Bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo” (2015)…
The association is affiliated with the International Napoleonic Society, founded by the late Ben-Vider, a Canadian Jew, who contributed his inexhaustible energy and money to the advancement of the subject. He also published several books on the subject, including: “The Assassination of Napoleon,” which was translated into Hebrew.
The international association holds a conference every year in one of the countries of the world. So far, conferences have been held in Italy, France (of course), Malta, Corsica, Georgia, Russia, Spain, Ireland, Cuba (where one of the most important Napoleonic museums in the world is located, founded before the revolution by a Jew named Wolf), Germany, the Netherlands, and countless others.
We would be happy to add new members, and those interested can contact us to do so via The center's website.
And I would like to emphasize that my interest in Napoleon is just a hobby for me and not an illness.